An interview with Lars Röhm about the fine against the FAU Berlin

In April, the FAU Berlin was charged 200 Euros for referring to itself as a union in its statutes. In December 2009, an injunction had been issued forcing them to remove the word union from all their publications. However the banned word remained in the statutes until mid-March as a change there would have taken several months. The management of the Babylon Mitte Cinema filed for the charges in February 2010. The injunction was also filed for by the same cinema's management during a labor dispute with its employees, which the FAU Berlin was supporting. This is the first time that a workers' association has been banned from calling itself a union in Germany. Lars Röhm has been the secretary of the FAU Berlin since 2009.

There is a wave of strikes, actions and demonstrations in Greece, and they are organized during dramatic circumstances not only for Greece but for the whole globe. The reasons of the misery are  caused by today`s capitalism which suffers the most serious crisis since the Great Depression.

We're under constant pressure. Capitalism needs labor, cheap labor that works long hours, in order to maximize profit. We feel it day in and day out. This pressure leads to downsizing; fewer workers are doing more. At the same time "atypical" employment is on the rise: temps, short-term contracts, freelancers, part-timers and workfare.

First of May 2010

At the time of writing, the attacks on the working conditions, pay and jobs are gathering pace across the world. The capitalist crisis that started in 2008 was supposed to be over by now, but yet economic problems continue to escalate with workers having to defend jobs and conditions across the globe. Meanwhile the big capitalist investors and hedge funds continue to gamble with the future of whole nations in the pursuit of ever higher profits. 

The 9th of April was an International Day of struggle against the Temporary Work Agency Start people. It was an initiative from the CNT-AIT Zaragoza and the IWA is ready if more solidarity is needed!

The newest  solidarity initiative came four days ago from  SOV CNT-AIT Alicante, and the IWA sections and Friends  participate in an urgent action against  harassments and dismissals at Editoral Oceano which is a firm with branches in many countries!.

Comrades,

We obtained following appeal from Ukrainian independent student union "Pryama diya" (i.e.  Direct Action) with a request to distribute it in IWA. This union decided some time ago to seek  the membership in the IWA and participated actively in some IWA solidarity campaigns  (with ASI, FAU etc.).
The comrades from "Pryama diya" inform that they will organize protest days against repressions on 20-22 April. Comrades ask to send protest letters and to organize pickets in front of Ukrainian embassies

Please show your solidarity!

Anarcho-syndicalist greetings

V.Damier
int.secr. KRAS-IWA

Serbian ruling class continues enhanced repression against the libertarian movement, the repression that began with the arrest of the Belgrade six - Sanja Dojkić, Tadej Kurepa, Ratibor Trivunac, Ivan Vulović, Nikola Mitrović and Ivana Savić - in September 2009. Until then unknown anarchist group “Black Ilija” claimed responsibility for throwing two bottles of burning liquid on the pavement near the Greek embassy in Belgrade, as a reaction to the barbaric treatment of the rebels by the Greek state, thereby causing damage of 18 Euros to the embassy.

Last November, the temporary work agency Start People notified its employees who had been providing services in Qualytel that they had been overpaid because of a mistake in their  contract. In these contracts, both parties agreed on a salary of 7.99 euros per hour, which included a payment for transport that was not included in the agreement.

Many comrades refused to sign the paper, which would have allowed the agency to make deductions from the salaries which had been overpaid. This would have left them with a salary of only 7.27 euros. Instead, they started receiving threats that they would be taken to court and that the contract would be terminated immediately, etc.

The CNT tried to get in touch with Start People several times to resolve the conflict between the two parties, but, as one can expect, they received no answer.

The only thing our comrade received after this was the notice that her contract would not be renewed. The only reason for this is the fact that she had decided to demand what is rightfully hers. The rest of the workers that started working on the same conditions as her saw their contracts renewed..

Later, the company acknowledged, in an act of reconciliation, that it had made an unfair dismissal and therefore would pay our worker the appropiate compensation. But our member, not happy with this, demanded reinstatement. This demand is supported by the fact that the contract fell under the Fraud Act, since the workers were supposedly hired temporarily for the company but it was actually a permanent job inside the firm.

There was a tremendous turn out of supporters for the start of the Belgrade 6 case. There was also many supporters from outside Serbia, which included may supporters from the IWA sections. All the main Serbian TV channels were also present.