Lawyers for the firm Turret Development are trying, unsuccessfully, to scare off anarcho-syndicalists of the ZSP and dissuade them from their campaign to get plane tickets back to China for 21 stranded workers who are stuck in Warsaw without money or a valid work permit.
The workers were employed on the Wola Tower construction site. Turret's lawyers are trying to convince people that they bear no respsonsibility whatsoever for what went on with these workers. They claim (despite what is written on their own webpages) they have nothing to do with Wola Tower and that the investor is a company called "Massandra" and that subcontractors are at fault.
It should be noted that "Massandra" is actually part of the Turret group, with the same Chairman of the Board, same registered headquarters and office, etc. etc. The same capital group runs various interconnected companies and, in cases like this, tries to shift responsibility onto other entities.
ZSP understands that what is going on here is very typical. One of the main problems for the precarious workforce is that they are often employed through a complicated maze of subcontractors and sometimes even short-lived firms set up for only one project. The problems of the Chinese workers' employment are even worse as they are dependent on their first employer for their visas; upon termination of contract, the visa lapses and they must leave the country.
The fight against precarious work conditions must include an expose and confrontation of the methods of "employment without employment" so common in the world today. In our local conditions these most often include: forcing workers to set up business activity and be employed as independent entrepeneurs; hiring workers through agencies for periods exceeding the legal limits; hiring workers illegally on consecutive fixed-term, specific work or mandate contracts; dispersing the chain of responsibility by hiring people through a maze of subcontractors; using shady legal entities as employers. (The latter are sometimes registered in other jurisdictions and workers are sometimes given contracts with clauses requiring them to seek any possible legal remedy in other countries.)
In the concrete situation of these workers, we will not be confused by legalistic bullshit. We will continue to demand help for these victims of exploitation from the entities involved in the construction of Wola Tower.
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