Many workers on the building site of Torun Plaza shopping mall in Torun have not received their full salary or any salary at all. This has been going on for 2-3 months. The firm Plaza Centers is using various subcontracting firms - Karmar, Dynamic Metal and F-Tech, each one which claims that the delayed payments are not their fault. The workers at the bottom are left with either partial payments or nothing at all - something which they cannot afford. Most are already working for the minimum wage - less than 350 euros a month.
A comrade notified us of the case and ZSP in Warsaw visited the main office of Plaza Centers last week. It is a large international firm building shopping malls, mostly in Eastern Europe. It also has a shady reputation in Poland; last year, 4 people died while building a mall in Suwalki. In order to make more money, construction firms often cut costs and speed up deadlines, sometimes with tragic consequences for workers.
Nobody at Plaza Centers wanted to talk to us, immediately panicking and calling the security. We demanded that people get paid or we would take action, including blocking the opening of the mall next month. The next day, our delegate spoke with others on the construction site in Torun about what could be done.
We are sorry to report that workers have still not got paid. After our actions, local journalists have been investigating the case, trying to get documentation on the situation; all the companies refuse to provide them and each blame the other. Dynamic and F-Tech each admit that their workers are owed money. At the top of this pyramid, Plaza wipes its hands clean of this situation.
Since nothing has been done to straighten out the situation, we are obligated to intensify the action. As Plaza Centers will notice, we have already announced the mobilization of the blockade of their mall and other groups are joining in. Already people are mobilizing in Torun, posters are going up. Another union also made an informational event in their city at a Plaza mall. We call on people to support the workers in this struggle and for the ones still working to support the calls of their colleagues calling for more decisive direct action, We also plan to check the subcontractors firms and see what Plaza Centers is doing on an international level. We warn workers in Serbia and Romania, where Plaza is also functioning and planning new investments, that this company has financial liquidity problems. They have a negative investment rating, big debts, owe money on Torun Plaza and cannot complete Csiki Plaza in Romania but are planning to build Belgrade Plaza and Constanta Plaza malls.
A comrade notified us of the case and ZSP in Warsaw visited the main office of Plaza Centers last week. It is a large international firm building shopping malls, mostly in Eastern Europe. It also has a shady reputation in Poland; last year, 4 people died while building a mall in Suwalki. In order to make more money, construction firms often cut costs and speed up deadlines, sometimes with tragic consequences for workers.
Nobody at Plaza Centers wanted to talk to us, immediately panicking and calling the security. We demanded that people get paid or we would take action, including blocking the opening of the mall next month. The next day, our delegate spoke with others on the construction site in Torun about what could be done.
We are sorry to report that workers have still not got paid. After our actions, local journalists have been investigating the case, trying to get documentation on the situation; all the companies refuse to provide them and each blame the other. Dynamic and F-Tech each admit that their workers are owed money. At the top of this pyramid, Plaza wipes its hands clean of this situation.
Since nothing has been done to straighten out the situation, we are obligated to intensify the action. As Plaza Centers will notice, we have already announced the mobilization of the blockade of their mall and other groups are joining in. Already people are mobilizing in Torun, posters are going up. Another union also made an informational event in their city at a Plaza mall. We call on people to support the workers in this struggle and for the ones still working to support the calls of their colleagues calling for more decisive direct action, We also plan to check the subcontractors firms and see what Plaza Centers is doing on an international level. We warn workers in Serbia and Romania, where Plaza is also functioning and planning new investments, that this company has financial liquidity problems. They have a negative investment rating, big debts, owe money on Torun Plaza and cannot complete Csiki Plaza in Romania but are planning to build Belgrade Plaza and Constanta Plaza malls.
No comments:
Post a Comment