Support Polish Migrants Strike Against Tescos
renegado | 03.08.2005 08:09 | Migration | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements
Support Polish workers wildcat strike against Tescos in Ireland. Solidarity pickets this Thursday August 4th, 6pm at Tesco's all over Ireland and at Hackney Central, London and other cities around UK.
Picket Banner in Dublin
Two Polish workers in Dublin who literally refused to break their backs for the boss in Tesco distribution have been fired. Tescos is the largest super-market chain in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Their main grievance is that they are continually being asked to meet higher productivity levels. The levels currently being demanded by management present a danger to the health of the workers. The start of these demands on the workforce came soon after the entry of Poland into the EU and more Polish workers were hired by Tesco through temping agencies. Tesco is taking unfair advantage of workers coming from Poland who are unaware of their rights as employees and who are at first grateful to get a job which pays more than they would get at home.
As the workers are temporary, they can be sacked if they fail to meet these ever-increasing targets. Due to the new targets being unsustainable, there has been much dissatisfaction among the workforce. Two Polish workers who were vocally expressing this dissent found themselves fired for their efforts. Along with the demand that productivity targets be reduced to a manageable level, the workers are demanding that the two employees who were laid off have their jobs reinstated and that agency temps who work for longer than 3 months should get a permanent contract from Tesco with all the associated benefits.
Polish workers all over Ireland are going on strike. There have also been solidarity actions in Poland, where Networks of punks, squatters and anarchists organised around the Rozbrat squat have picketed two Tescos in two Polish cities.
Solidarity pickets have been called on every Tesco's in Ireland this Thursday.
In the UK people are also planning to show solidarity. Pickets have been called for called for Thurs 4th August in Liverpool, Oxford andoutside Tesco's near Hackney Central in London at 6pm
Come on Down and show your support
Or organise a picket on the Tescos in your neighbourhood
Our resistance needs to be as transnational as Capital!
For more info on the dispute. See:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71189
Their main grievance is that they are continually being asked to meet higher productivity levels. The levels currently being demanded by management present a danger to the health of the workers. The start of these demands on the workforce came soon after the entry of Poland into the EU and more Polish workers were hired by Tesco through temping agencies. Tesco is taking unfair advantage of workers coming from Poland who are unaware of their rights as employees and who are at first grateful to get a job which pays more than they would get at home.
As the workers are temporary, they can be sacked if they fail to meet these ever-increasing targets. Due to the new targets being unsustainable, there has been much dissatisfaction among the workforce. Two Polish workers who were vocally expressing this dissent found themselves fired for their efforts. Along with the demand that productivity targets be reduced to a manageable level, the workers are demanding that the two employees who were laid off have their jobs reinstated and that agency temps who work for longer than 3 months should get a permanent contract from Tesco with all the associated benefits.
Polish workers all over Ireland are going on strike. There have also been solidarity actions in Poland, where Networks of punks, squatters and anarchists organised around the Rozbrat squat have picketed two Tescos in two Polish cities.
Solidarity pickets have been called on every Tesco's in Ireland this Thursday.
In the UK people are also planning to show solidarity. Pickets have been called for called for Thurs 4th August in Liverpool, Oxford andoutside Tesco's near Hackney Central in London at 6pm
Come on Down and show your support
Or organise a picket on the Tescos in your neighbourhood
Our resistance needs to be as transnational as Capital!
For more info on the dispute. See:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71189
renegado
Homepage:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71189
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
another view
03.08.2005 08:47
a) Tesco want them to work hard !
b) They have decided they don't like the terms and conditions of the job, T&C's they knew about in advance and signed up to !
I checked the sympathy gauge and it's reading "not a lot"
?
Press Release on the Nationwide Pickets
03.08.2005 08:52
For immediate release:
Nationwide Pickets of TESCO in Support of Sacked Polish Agency Workers
Solidarity pickets are to be held tomorrow in Ireland, Scotland and England in solidarity with sacked Polish agency workers – Radek Sawicki and Zbyszek Bukala. Bukala and Sawicki, were employed by Grafton employment agency as warehouse operatives working for the Tesco’s Greenhills Road distribution centre in Dublin. The pair helped establish the Tesco Temps Defence Committee in late July to push for the following central demands.
1. Zbyszek Bukala and Radek Sawicki must be reinstated to Tesco Distribution
The agency's attempt to transfer them to work in another company is nothing more than silencing the voices of workers.
2. Contracts for agency staff after three months on the job
While contracted workers get over €500 a week on a day shift, agency staff get just €320.
3.The '1000 a day' production target must be cancelled.
The continuous raising of the daily norm (from 750, to 800, to 900 and then 1000) must be stopped.
Bukala and Sawicki were sacked by Tesco following protest actions, including Sawicki turning up for work in a ‘We Are Picking 800 No More’ t-shirt, a reference to the rising daily picking quota of boxes expected by Tesco. The act of defiance sparked the formation of the Committee and the consequent protests.
The committee organised a wildcat stoppage at the distribution centre – supported by Irish and Polish workers – on Friday July 29th.
Sawicki is also a member of Irish union SIPTU which is taking Grafton and Tesco to court for exploitation of workers and unfair dismissal of a Polish worker respectively.
The Tesco Temps Defence Committee, friends, supporters and activists from the Irish Workers Solidarity Movement will hold a picket at Tesco on Baggot Street (near Stephens Green) at 6pm this Thursday. Solidarity pickets are expected in Cork and Belfast.
Polish TGWU member temporary workers will hold a solidarity picket in Liverpool tomorrow outside Tesco Metro, St Johns Shopping Centre, Liverpool City Centre at 6pm.
Further solidarity pickets are taking place on Thursday in:
London, outside Hackney Tesco, Morning Lane E9 6pm
Glasgow, Argyle Street Tesco, Lanarkshire G2 6pm
Oxford, Cowley Road Tesco, Oxfordshire, OX4 6pm
Supporters are encouraged to download and print off posters and leaflets and conduct their own pickets and protests at local Tescos this Thursday.
See www.indymedia.org.uk , www.indymedia.ie and www.scotland.indymedia.org for any further picket news and announcements
For more information please contact:
Radoslaw Sawicki, Tesco Temps Defence Committee 00353 857 308 598 (Polish Language)
For English language information call 00353 845 142 5053
Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Workers Initiative – inedpendent Polish trade union), Poznań 0048 504 550 857
Relating to Liverpool protest picket – Ewa Jasiewicz, 07770 582 397
Notes for journalists
•Tesco is the UK's biggest supermarket chain, with over 30 per cent of the grocery market, far ahead of nearest rival Asda.
•
•In 2004 Tesco made £1.6bn in profits, £4.4m a day -- as much as M&S, Sainsbury, Next and WH Smith combined.
•
•Tesco operates 2,318 stores in 12 countries around the world and employs 326,000 people, many in Eastern Europe.
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•Tesco has expanded massively into former-Communist countries like Poland, putting many small farmers out of business and contributing to unemployment, already at around 40% in many rural areas.
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•Tesco Ireland has already been fined for selling food below cost in order to put competitors out of business (January 2004).
•
For detailed info on Tesco see profile by Corporate Watch at
EJ
One injury to one and injury to all
03.08.2005 12:12
1- The workers on strike did not come to the UK, if you read the information it says clearly they are in Ireland (Tesco also operates there)
2- The improvement of their working conditions does not only benefit them but in benefits all the working class may they be Polish,Chinese or Irish
3- Just because they are migrants it does not mean the businesses have more right to abuse/exploit them than they would do with local workers
Keith
TGWU Press Release
03.08.2005 14:51
For immediate release – Wednesday 3rd August 2005
Newsdesks: industrial correspondents, Liverpool regional media
T&G Polish members join nationwide Tesco protest
Polish members of the Transport and General Workers’ Union will be joining solidarity protests outside Tescos stores tomorrow in support of two sacked Polish agency workers. Radek Sawicki and Zbyszek Bukala were employed by the agency Grafton as warehouse operatives working for the Tesco’s Greenhills Road distribution centre in Dublin, and were sacked after a series of protest actions. Tomorrow there will be a picket at Tesco on Baggot Street (near Stephens Green) at 6pm and solidarity protests will take place at the same time at Tesco Metro, St Johns Shopping Centre, Liverpool City Centre; and in London, Glasgow and Oxford.
Sawicki and Bukala had been protesting over the different pay rates for agency workers (350 per week compared to 500 per week for contracted staff), and the continuous raising of daily production targets for picking boxes in the Tesco warehouse, which rose from 750 to 800, to 900 and then 1,000. Sawicki is also a member of Irish union SIPTU which is taking Grafton and Tesco to court for exploitation of workers and unfair dismissal of a Polish worker respectively.
Ewa Jasiewicz, T&G Organiser, said:
“Polish workers in the UK have the same legal rights to fair pay, dignity at work, holidays and insurance as British workers yet despite Poland's accession to the EU in May 2004, Polish workers are still being exploited. With the self-organisation and solidarity growing between migrant and domestic workers, we know this will come to an end.”
Solidarity protests will take place at the following stores, and activists are encouraged to initiate their own protests (for campaign contacts call the T&G Press Office):
London, outside Hackney Tesco, Morning Lane E9 6pm
Glasgow, Argyle Street Tesco, Lanarkshire G2 6pm
Oxford, Cowley Road Tesco, Oxfordshire, OX4 6pm
ENDS
For further information please contact the T&G Press Office on 020 7611 2549
belboid
...
03.08.2005 17:50
dame shirley porter
john howard
03.08.2005 23:01
anti-logic