ZSP was founded on March 31, 2007 in Gliwice, Poland. Since then, our membership has grown and we have been involved in a number of labour conflicts, as well as activity in other areas, especially involving the material situation of the poor and working class. We present a short list of events and activities over the past 5 years. We have participated in many other protests and solidarity actions: for more information, see our web page: zsp.net.pl
2007
ZSP is founded. A month later, it organizes an international conference and May Day demonstration as its first public action.
ZSP supports member in the Opel factory in Gliwice during strike action. ZSP condemned the working conditions of workers sent from temporary agencies, especially Adecco.
ZSP actively supports the actions of striking nurses, including some logistical support during camp.
2008
ZSP actively supports the occupation strike of Budryk miners, relaying information and gaining international solidarity.
ZSP organizes solidarity pickets at Auchan and Tesco supermarkets in response to anti-union dismissals.
ZSP intervenes in the cases of workers cheated by Adecco and Workforce and a comrade working in Bausmeat in Holland. All payments are regulated. Picketing action held at Adecco.
ZSP starts publicizing information about people cheated while working abroad which becomes well-known with job seekers.
ZSP helps bakery workers to get extra pay for work on weekends.
March against US Missile Bases in Slupsk.
Ukrainian bus drivers in Warsaw hold wildcat strike for payment that was owed. ZSP helped document their claims and defend their strike. They received the money.
ZSP makes active support of post office strike and defends dismissed comrade and other workers.
Comrade fights against unfair dismissal from railways before his retirement and wins compensation.
ZSP visits and supports the occupation strike of bus drivers in Kielce. The union makes a criticism of the legal form of worker-owned firms that allows, among others, for regular shareholding and majority shareholding, transfer of ownership rights and use of wage labour without voting rights, at the time that Solidarity union supported that. This criticism becomes widely circulated in bus companies, some of which already took this legal form and the workers still suffer. (Example: wildcat strike of Ukrainian bus drivers occured in such a „worker-owned firm”.) These ideas bring ZSP in touch with minority independent unions in bus companies throughout Poland.
ZSP in Wroclaw campaigns against price increases.
Founding of union in Lionbridge multinational, dismissal of comrade and international action campaign for reinstatement, Was not reinstated but received big compensation from the company.
Counterball in Warsaw.
2009
ZSP organizes solidarity actions against repression of union activist in Nestle. FAU Switzerland organizes picket at corporate headquarters.
ZSP helps worker who in injured in Holland while working through the temporary agency Groenflex get compensation and hospital bills paid. Actions organized in the Netherlands and Poland, with an occupation of the company office. Workers receive health insurance afterwards.
Members of ZSP in Warsaw create the Tenants Defense Committee along with neighbours.
ZSP supports comrades from the ZOZ in Bielsko-Biala by occupying office of Starosta.
ZSP pickets the opening of Starbucks cafes in Poland, in solidarity with the Starbucks workers union in the US. It had previously taken part of an international solidarity action called by the IWW in the US and the CNT-AIT in Spain.
Campaign with Chinese subcontracted workers at JW Construction. They were cheated by the subcontractor and wanted to be paid return to China. They received tickets home, some payment received.
ZSP campaigns against the political repression of anarchosyndicalists in Serbia.
ZSP in Wroclaw organized a campaign against raises of public transport prices, calling for a fare boycott and free transportation. It caused a serious public debate about transport in the city.
ZSP campaigns for workers rights in the cafe / bookshop Falanster in Wroclaw, condemning the use of trash contracts and abuse of trial periods.
ZSP becomes the newest section of the International Workers Association.
2010
ZSP organizes solidarity actions in defense of our sister union, FAU from Germany, which was fighting for the right to call itself a union. This was the result of repressive action taken after workers organized themselves at the Kino Babylon in Berlin but the boss claimed they were not a union. The FAU eventually upheld its rights in court.
Campaign for workers rights at Greenway restaurant chain. Protests against working conditions and the illegal use of unpaid trial periods. Due payments made to most workers who claimed.
ZSP organizes emergency demonstrations after racist killing of trader in Warsaw.
ZSP makes direct actions in Carrefour against some anti-worker practices. Bad publicity forces supermarket to eliminate them.
Campaign to help stranded Chinese construction workers. Building company refuses to pay and subcontractors blame each other. ZSP campaigns against the repeated exploitation of such workers,
ZSP supports the position of a small independent union (15 persons) during the occupation strike at the bus company in Gostynin. It intervened against the use of scab bus drivers, helping the strike.
Member of ZSP organizes against unfair practices in public gardening and some changes made.
ZSP pickets against illegal deductions at Azteca Bar in Warsaw and spreads information about this issue among workers.
ZSP calls for a rent strike in Warsaw. People refuse to pay but resistance goes underground at the threat of mass reprisals by the city.
Members of ZSP in Wroclaw become involved, along with local residents in setting up Tenants´ Action.
ZSP helps Ukrainian workers at National Stadium construction site to get better living conditions. It later helps to expose facts related to the death of two workers due to negligence.
2011
ZSP supports OBI workers for better working conditions and the right to organize in unions. It organizes actions at OBI stores in Poland and an international day of action with pickets throughout Germany (where OBI is headquarter), organized by our sister union, FAU.
OTTO campaign, against abuses of international temporary work agency, OTTO workforce. Actions in Holland, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic. A number of workers received missing pay, sick leave and other monetary claims, some practices where changed, including cheating on pay in one factory in Wroclaw. The campaign continues.
ZSP organizes first Days of Social Rage, during the visit of Barak Obama.
ZSP Warsaw organizes protests against rising prices for transport, day care and sewage. It promotes free public transport.
ZSP organizes actions about workers who were not paid at the Torun Plaza shopping mall construction site, with actions in Warsaw, Torun and Silesia. Partial payment is made but workers give up after some repression (colleague is fired).
ZSP organizes pickets at Brave New World bar in Warsaw against the use of trash contracts and bad working conditions of barstaff.
The Plenary of the International Workers' Association is held in Warsaw, for the first time in Poland.
In Warsaw, ZSP starts neighbourhood patrols in Praga against arsonists who are setting fire to communal housing.
2012
ZSP campaigns for activist dismissed from Roche and condemns the use of fictious self-employment. It begins an information campaign on this issue and informs workers how to get their benefits.
ZSP campaigns against the raising of the retirement age and against social cuts.
In Wroclaw, it campaigns again against rising ticket prices.
A demonstration was held in Warsaw on March 31, its 5th anniversary.
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