A-Infos (en) Europe, prol-position issue #2 5.2005

This newsletter is for the exchange of reports on worker's struggles.
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Contents:
Editorial ......................................... 1
Going East: Investments in Eastern Europe ..........3
Investments in the Czech Republic: Boom or Fall? ... 5
Migrant Workers in the Czech Republic ................... 8
Strike at Skoda Auto, Mlada Boleslav, Czech Rep. .... 9
Migration, Industry and Struggles in Poland .......... 11
More Strikes in Poland ........................................... 14
Romania after the Transition .................................. 14
Strike at Michelin (Zalau, Romania) ...................... 17
Interview on Solectron (Timisoara, Romania) ........ 18
Wildcat-Preface: Beverly Silver, `Forces of Labor' .... 20
Strike at ThyssenKrupp in Terni, Italy .................... 21
Striking Olive Harvest Workers in Spain ................ 24
Chat on the Olive Harvest Strike in Spain .............. 28
A new kind of Strikes in France (Citroen etc.) .......... 30
More on the Citroën strike ..................................... 36
France: Leaflet on 35h-Week .................................. 37
Leaflet on hotel workers' strike (Accor, France) ....... 38
Students' Struggles All Over ................................... 40
Update: Car-Industry ............................................. 46

Editorial

  This issue's main focus is on the class situation in
countries in Eastern Europe. The movement of capi-
tal and the labor force from the East to the West and
vice versa is a decisive element of class re-composition
in Europe. Mobilizing a large reserve army of work-
ers from Eastern Europe to supply certain sectors in
the West and threatening to re-locate production from
Western Europe to the East serve as important levers in
intensifying exploitation. The ominous image of `low
wage regions in Eastern Europe' and `low wage work-
ers' is partly capitalist propaganda; the real picture is
much more complicated. Eastern European workers
are often hired in sectors of the western labor market
(like agriculture and cleaning) where `local' workers
don't work. In early April 2005 German agricultural
employers loudly objected to government plans pres-
suring more German unemployed into working in the
fields, instead of hiring Polish contract workers. They
complained about the German unemployed `arriving
too late to work, leaving too early, and taking sick leave
after two days'. At the same time, more workers from
eastern Germany are migrating to the Netherlands to
find work in greenhouses.

  Regarding re-location of production units, the ac-
tual re-locations to the East are few compared to new
investments in the West itself. Direct investments of
western companies mainly consists of buying the for-
merly state-owned infrastructure or companies in the
East, like telecommunications. Other investments are
undertaken to supply local markets, meaning that they
will not replace production capacities in the West. To
unmask the propaganda element in the `Go East'-hype,
we need to organise a deeper inquiry into the actual
movements of capital and the class confrontations in
Eastern Europe countries. In this newsletter you will
find some texts that might serve as a starting point: The
article Going East summarizes statistical material on
the relation between direct investments and the shifts
in production by German companies. It concludes that
setting-up production units in the East rarely results in
closing sections of the same company in the West. Apart
from supplying local markets, the bosses are aiming for
a situation where they can, with maximum flexibility,
play-off certain production sites against each other.
Foreign Investments in the Czech Republic: Boom or
Fall analyzes the re-structuring process of capital and
the labor market during the last decade, the impact of
this restructuring on the Czech Republic as one of the
main regions for direct foreign investments in the for-
mer Eastern Bloc, and the threat by capital to move on
further east. Migrant workers in the Czech Republic
sheds light on the situation of Slovakian, Polish and
Ukrainian workers in the Czech Republic. The article
shows how the European labor market extends far be-
yond the borders of the EU, setting-off chain reactions
of work migration. Czech building workers working
in the West, for instance, are replaced by Ukrainians
slaving away in Czech cities, having to put up with
the Czech state's migration policies and the mafia-like
structure of Ukrainian temp agencies.

  Skoda Auto: Inspiration from Mlada Boleslav? is an
article about the recent strike at Skoda in the Czech
Republic. It argues that although it was the biggest
struggle at Skoda so far, the workers - under the union's
control - didn't really use their power to win. But the
situation at Skoda and in other companies might
change: Some of the new plants western companies
have set up in the Czech Republic can't find enough
workers in the region, undermining the lay-off threat.
These new plants are often not unionized, leading the
authors to conclude that there is "some possibility for
an autonomous struggle in which any union structures
would be left behind. We shall see where this inspira-
tion from Skoda will lead...". Behind the Border - Po-
land describes the history of class struggle in Poland
since the 70s, the role of financial policies and state
repression, the context of workers' struggles, and the
collapse of the socialist regime of exploitation. It also
deals with the structure of the Polish agrarian and in-
dustrial sectors today and the question of migration.
Attached to this text is an update on recent struggles
in and around Poland.

  Promised Land and Class Struggle: Romania after
the Transition examines the development of capital
and migration in Romania. The main focus is on the
textile industry, pointing out the important role of Ital-
ian companies in the restructuring process. We added
a short interview with a worker from Solectron in Ti-
misoara. Solectron is a US-company producing mobile
phones and other electronic equipment for companies
like Nokia, Ericsson and Alcatel. Then follows some
news on a recent strike in Romania (Michelin) and
Solectron in France.

  After the texts on the class struggle in Eastern Europe,
you find the preface of Beverly Silver's book `Forces of
Labor' written by `Wildcat' people who recently pub-
lished the book in Germany. Silver investigated the last
130 years of workers' struggles on a worldwide scale,
using a database she and her collegues have built up.
"The book's particular strength is telling the (hi)story
from the perspective of workers in struggle (...) `Forces
of Labor' elaborates on the connection between strug-
gles from below and their effects on ruling class actions
and, therefore, capitalism's development as a world sys-
tem. Workers' struggles chase capital around the globe
and from one industrial product to the next. And with
every new cycle of hegemonic power, pressure from be-
low had more impact on the shape of the world order."
We publish this preface because we think this book can
help us in understanding the world-historical develop-
ment of struggles as well as the course and outcome
of certain workers' struggles we want to investigate or
take part in ourselves.

  Some more reports on struggles follow: The first is a
report on the strike at the ThyssenKrupp steelmill in
Terni, Italy based on several interviews with workers.
There was a strike early last year after the German mul-
tinational ThyssenKrupp had threatened to close down
a certain section of production in Terni/Italy and shift it
to other plants elsewhere. ThyssenKrupp backed down
- just to re-announce the closure a few months later.
Again, the workers went on strike but without success.
The tale of Striking Day Laborers in the Spanish Olive
Harvest gives an overview on the structure of the Span-
ish agro-industrial sector and its (migrant) work force,
describing the three main front lines on which capi-
tal attacks: the changes in unemployment benefit for
seasonal workers, the new migration law, and the in-
creasing mechanization. These front lines also defined
the reality in a small village near Cordoba/Jaen, where
day workers struck for a month in winter of 2005. We
added a Chat on the Olive Harvest Strike. The article
A new kind of Strikes in France tries to draw a line
between the restructuring of the (car-)industry, the ef-
fects on wages and work conditions and the new kinds
of strikes that make "visible a new offensive attitude
against the conditions of exploitation". The strike at
Citroën, Aulnay (near Paris), serves as the main exam-
ple. More on Citroën is another (shorter) comment on
the Citroën strike, sent to us by a comrade who has a
slightly different viewpoint on that strike.
  The leaflet on the 35-hours law in France focuses on
the French government's late 90s so-called Aubry-law
which was praised by the European left as a job creating
miracle. The reforms of the right-wing government to-
day are interpreted as a break with the `workers friendly'
legal achievements of the left. The leaflet describes how
the much-praised law of the leftist government minis-
ter Aubry was a big leap forward to further flexibilisa-
tion in working time and a reduction in real wages and
that the right-wing government today is only continu-
ing on a path already been paved by the previous left
one. The leaflet for Faty, ex-striker at Accor, France, is
a call for practical international solidarity with striking
workers at the French hotel chain. We want to support
this initiative because it tries to overcome `national' and
language boundaries. However, we added some critical
comments on the campaign's main focus.
  We have also summarized some reports from various
students' protests in different parts of Europe (France,
Italy, Germany, Slovakia) over the last few months. The
violent attacks against the students' demonstration in
Paris by kids from the suburbs raise political questions
concerning not only schools and the youth movement,
but the whole class situation in large urban areas with
entrenched high unemployment and a parallel econo-
my. For an update on the situation and strikes in the
car industry in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germa-
ny and Italy we took material from several (leftist and
non-leftist) newspapers. The struggle at Dräxlmaier in
Bremen/Germany is yet another example of the in-
dustrial power post-Fordism puts in workers' hands.
Dräxlmeier is one of the main German direct investors
in Romania and other Eastern European countries.
The (wildcat) strikes at Skoda in the Czech Republic,
Citroën in France (see the other articles in this newslet-
ter) and the spontaneous protests at Fiat Mirafiori in
Italy contrast with the silence surrounding the Rover
car factory's closure in Britain.

==================================================
* [Ed note: The newsleter is a nonformal project of the nonformal
network of antiauthoritarian anticapitalist collectives involved
with precarity workers (like the Wombles in Britain. Solidarity in France,
and wildcat in Germany, etc)

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