Zum 90. Jahrestag der Ermordung von Leo Jogiches (1867-1919)

Heute vor 90 Jahren, am 10. März 1919 wurde Leo Jogiches, eine der prägenden Gestalten der internationalistischen Linken in der ArbeiterInnenbewegung in Polen, Litauen und Deutschland im Knast Berlin-Moabit „auf der Flucht erschossen“. Jogiches, auch Tyszka beziehungsweise Tyshko genannt zählte zu den GründerInnen der Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy (SDKPiL), der Spartakusgruppe und der KPD und zu den engsten MitarbeiterInnen und -diskutantInnen Rosa Luxemburgs, mit welcher er zeitweise liiert war. Nachfolgend dokumentiert eine Ansprache, welche Grigori Sinowjew am 1. April 1919 zum Gedenken an Leo Jogiches hielt (wozu angemerkt werden muss, dass Jogiches der aus seiner (und Luxemburgs) Sicht verfrühten Gründung der von Sinowjew geleiteten Kommunistischen Internationalen durchaus kritisch gegenüber stand):

New Crime of the German „Social-Democratic Government“

In Berlin a new monstrous crime has been committed by the Government of the German Social-Democrats. The Government of Scheideman and Noske has brutally shot comrade Leo Tyshko, an old revolutionary, the former representative of the Polish Social-Democrats at the 2nd International. For over 30 years comrade Tyshko has fought in the workers’ ranks for the cause of Socialism. Comrade Tyshko was at the head of the heroic Polish proletariat at the time when the latter erected the first revolutionary barricades in Warsaw and Lodz. Many years comrade Tyshko passed in prison, as a fighter for the workmen’s cause. In 1906 he was sentenced to 8 years of hard labour. When he succeeded in escaping from prison he at once resumed the struggle for the cause of Socialism. The revolution of November found Tyshko in a German prison into which he was thrown by the government of William II. During ten years comrade Tyshko was one of the most faithful and prominent leaders of the German revolutionary movement. Together with Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg comrade Tyshko was the principal founder of the Spartacus group, which later developed into the Communist Party of Germany, International Socialism knew no more devoted, more self-denying, or more energetic workman than com. Tyshko.

And this is the comrade that Scheidemann and Noske, who call themselves social-democrats, have now brutally murdered.

Comrade Tyshko was shot because to his last breath he was faithful to the interests of the working class and Communism.

Comrade Tyshko was shot because he was the mortal enemy of bourgeois order.

The Communistic International calls upon the workmen of all countries to bare their heads before the grave of this remarkable fighter and organizer of indomitable energy. The Communistic International is convinced that the day is not far off when the workmen of Germany will deal with the bourgeoisie executioners and butchers of the Berlin Communists–Scheideman, Ebert and Noske–according to their merits.

Razzia – Aufnahmen von 1982

Einige Demo-Aufnahmen aus der Anfangszeit:

Vermischtes aus dem Norden

1.) Lesenswertes aus Oldenburg: Regentied

2.) Die Norderstedter Zeitung erklärt den lieben Kleinen die Demokratie und erteilt eine Lektion in praktischer Staatsbürgerkunde Gemeinschaftskunde:

„Das ist das Tolle an einer Demokratie: Wenn Dir mal was stinkt, musst Du nur genügend Leute finden, denen das genauso geht – und schon kannst Du mit etwas Initiative die Welt verändern. Das klingt natürlich jetzt ganz einfach – ist es aber nicht. Du kannst zwar mal einfach fordern: „Ich will sechs Monate Schulferien im Jahr!“ Und genug Leute findest Du bestimmt, die Deiner Meinung sind. Aber das Innenministerium in Kiel würde so ein Bürgerbegehren nie annehmen. Die Sache muss schon Hand und Fuß haben.“

Demokratie hat ihre Grenzen, wo diese liegen entscheidet also das Innenministerium … da könnte ja sonst jedeR kommen …

3.) Der NPD-Blog berichtet über braune Flecken im niedersächsischen Waldorfschulmilieu im Zusammenhang mit dem Ex-Waldorflehrer und Ex-NPD-Landes-Spitzenkandidaten Andreas Molau (der gerade von der NPD zur DVU gewechselt ist:

4.)

Zum 25. Jahrestag des Beginns des Bergarbeiterstreiks in Britannien 1984/85 – Teil 2

Der Guardian, die Tageszeitung der aufgeklärt-linksliberalen KonsumentInnen mit Hochschulabschluss, gutem Einkommen und zuweilen einem partiellen schlechten Gewissen hat nach 25 Jahren Arthur Scargill, den damaligen Vorsitzenden der Bergarbeitergewerkschaft National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) zum Bergarbeiterstreik 1984/85 (einige Filmberichte dazu ) Wort kommen lassen … bleibt anzumerken, dass die Zeitung damals die abgespaltene Labourrechte um Roy Jenkins, David Owen und Konsorten in der Social Democratic Party (SDP) unterstüzte und Menschen wie Scargill mit Begriffen wie „Loony Leftist“ und dass natürlich auch Scargill zuweilen mit Vorsicht zu geniessen ist, speziell seitdem er mit der Socialist Labour Party (SLP, auch Scargill’s Little Party genannt) seinen stalinoiden Privatclub gegründet hat, der Artikel ist aber in jedem Fall lesenswert, hier ein Auszug:

„But the NUM’s historic battle did not begin in March 1984, as so many pundits claim. The seeds of the dispute had been sown long before. A pit closure plan in 1981 resulted in miners, including miners in Nottinghamshire, taking unofficial strike action (without a ballot) and forcing Thatcher into a U-turn, or in reality a body swerve.

At that time, Britain’s coal industry was the most efficient and technologically advanced in the world, a result of a tripartite agreement, the Plan For Coal, signed by a Labour government, the National Coal Board (NCB) and the mining trade unions in 1974, and endorsed by Thatcher in 1981. And yet, shortly after I became national president of the NUM in 1982 I was sent anonymously a copy of a secret plan prepared by NCB chiefs earmarking 95 pits for closure, with the loss of 100,000 miners’ jobs. This plan had been prepared on government instructions following the miners’ successful unofficial strike in 1981.

I took this document to the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) – its contents were not only denied by government and NCB chiefs, but were disbelieved by militant NUM leaders who had been assured that their pits had long-term futures. However, the exposed revelations struck a chord among our members throughout Britain’s coalfields where colliery managers – clearly acting on instructions from above – had already begun unilaterally changing agreed working practices, affecting shift patterns and supplementary payments.

It became clear that the union would have to take action, but of a type that would win maximum support and have a unifying effect. The NEC accepted a report from me recommending that we call a special national delegate conference, and link our opposition to the pit closure plan with a demand that the coal board negotiate the union’s wage claim. The NEC agreed, and the special conference was held on 21 October 1983. Delegates from all NUM areas were given a detailed report so that they could vote on what action – if any – should be taken. Following a full debate, they agreed to call a national overtime ban from 1 November – until such time as the NCB withdrew its closure plan and agreed to negotiate an increase in miners’ wages with the NUM.

Over the next four months, the overtime ban had an extraordinary impact. It succeeded in reducing coal output by 30%, or 12m tonnes, thus cutting national coal stocks to about the same level as they had been during the miners’ unofficial strike in 1981.“

ansonsten hier noch ein Kurzfilm zum Streik im Allgemeinen und zu einer der heftigsten Auseinandersetzungen während des Streiks (Soundtrack by The Redskins):

Internationaler Frauentag 2009

„But feminists take heart. There is going to be a new global upsurge of women like you have never seen, one that will engulf every economic relationship, every institution, every government. The second sex can no longer tolerate, whether they know it or not, the shackles and brainwashing and outrages visited upon them by the male establishment and its yuppie ore scaredy-cat female enablers.

It is time for swift-striking gender insurgency. Time for woman guerrillas, 20th century Amazons, mad shrieks of protest, and careful mobilization of political battalions. Goddammit sisters: Let’s get revolutionary. Let’s understand that the private profit system is at the bottom of all this horror, and let’s catapult ourselves to the mainstage of history. The world is waiting for the sunrise.“

(Clara Fraser: Thelma ans Louise „R“ Us, 1992)

Aufruf der Kommunistischen Partei Iran zum internationalen Frauentag

Quelle: http://cpiran.org/English/cpi-8th%20of%20March-2009.pdf

Declaration by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran on the Occasion of the 8th of March, Women’s International Day

It’s now more than three decades that the Islamic regime has imposed a slavery oriented situation on the Iranian women by relying on rules derived from Islamic law. The Islamic republic in Iran has constitutionalized gender apartheid and daily subordination of women in the society by its Islamic laws. According to these laws, women in Iran are officially regarded as half of men and are deprived from their most basic human rights. The regime has taken away the right of free choice in clothing from the Iranian women by forcing them to wear veil and through the threat of whipping and jailing.

The Islamic regime in Iran has crashed the human identity of half of the members of the society by ignoring the basic rights of women such as the right to travel alone, the right of divorce, the right of getting the custody of children and the right of freely socializing with men. This regime has actually turned the women into sex slaves by legalizing polygamy, temporary marriage and by giving social credit to the moral corruption of those men who admire these laws.

Thus the Islamic regime, with the help of its religious laws, has turned the reactionary male- dominant relationships into one of the strongholds for the continuation of its rule and uses these relationships in support of the capitalistic economic system, which is the root and the factor for the continuing oppression and misery of the women. Religion is not only the opium of the mass in Iran, but is also the means of oppressing and socially controlling the women and interfering in the people’s most private aspects of life.

Under these circumstances and due the worsening economic crisis where more than 50% of the Iranian people live under the line of poverty, poverty has affected the women’s lives much more than the other groups in the society. The consequences of poverty can be seen reflected through all aspects of women’s social life and have posed them to many social vulnerabilities.

This situation and the barbarity and brutality against the women by the Islamic regime has crashed the women’s human identity so hard that the women’s protests and rebellions against the current situation has become one of the main pillars of the mass’s struggle in the cause of the revolution and emancipation from the Islamic republic.

In Iran, the political role of religion and its role in controlling the women have created the ground for the growth of liberal-bourgeois inclinations in the women’s movement more than in any other social movement. The strategy and perspective of these inclinations for women is to only make modifications and reforms in the Islamic laws in Iran. Under these circumstances, the socialist activists in the women’s movement must pioneer the struggle for removing the dominance of religion and religious laws from women’s social life and actively participate in any struggle in support of women’s demands no matter how limited without being worried about compromising with liberals or losing their perspective in the presence of other inclinations in the women’s movement.

Meanwhile, the socialist activists should not forget for a single moment that the root of oppression against women lies in the capitalist system. Without enlightenment about the roots of oppressions against women and the struggle for uprooting these oppressions, the women will not be able to advance with an effective struggle against the male-dominant culture and the anti-women religious and reactionary laws. Without attacking the capitalistic relationships, the women movement will not be able to even end the inequalities in rights, which is caused by the economic inequality.

The advancement of the women’s movement conditions that the women’s movement becomes a mass and social movement. In order to become a social and mass movement, the working and toiling women must be also involved in the mass struggle, which in turn requires the endorsement of women’s economic independence and their welfare needs and demands and showing the way to achieve these demands. The Iranian bourgeoisliberalism that jollifies private property and whose strategy is following the neoliberal economic plans dominant in the world cannot even ensure the women’s legal rights.

The women’s movement cannot bring down the walls of oppression and advance with its struggle triumphantly in isolation from other democratic social movements. The working class, due to the nature of its demands and the fact that the majority of women are working and toiling women, is the strategic ally of the women’s movement.

Let’s cherish the 8th of March, the freedom-loving women’s and men’s international solidarity day against gender apartheid, the day for reviving our united struggle for ending the interference of religion in the women’s social life and for achieving true equality between men and women by extending our efforts in holding more glorious ceremonies and actions on this historical day and aiming at a wider union between women’s movement and the worker’s movement.

The Communist party of Iran congratulates all the just and free women and men on the occasion of 8th of March, women’s international day, the day of reviving our united struggle against gender apartheid.

Long live the 8th of March, women’s international day
Long live Freedom, Equality and Workers’ State

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran, March 2009

Neues aus den Archiven der radikalen Linken – eine Auswahl

Ältere Archiv-Updates und Hinweise zu weiteren linken Archivalien unter „Sozialistika„.

Projet de scannerisation de la revue Socialisme ou Barbarie:

* Socialisme ou Barbarie, No. 1, März-April 1949

Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF):

* Vickramabahu „Bahu“ Karunarathne: Sama Samajism and the Tamil Speaking People (1979)

Marxists Internet Archive (MIA):

* Victor Serge: The Bandits (1912)
* C.L.R. James: The Task Of Building The American Bolshevik Party (1946)
* Irwing Howe: On Comrade Johnson’s American Resolution – Or Soviets In The Sky (1946)
* Paul Mattick: Arbeitslosigkeit, Arbeitslosenfürsorge und Arbeitslosenbewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten (1936)
* Albert Goldman: Should Socialists Favor A Labor Party? (1935)
* W. B. Waltmire: The Socialist Campaign In The 34th Ward (1935)
* Socialist Appeal: Editorials, May 1935 (1935)
* Ross Dowson Internet Archive (Texte des kanadischen revolutionären Marxisten Ross Dowson aus dem Zeitraum 1932-1989)
* Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin: Heimsvaldastefnan – æðsta stig kapítalismans (1916, pdf-Datei)
* Ein ganzer Haufen Dokumente aus der Presse der Socialist Party of America (SPA) aus der Zeit des Ersten Weltkrieges (alle als pdf-Datei):
** Appeal to Reason: “Socialist Presidential Referendum Now On, Arouses Intense Interest.” (1916)
** New Times: “State Convention Passes Upon Many Important Questions: Finnish Difficulties Satisfactorily Settled—Many Constitutional Changes.” (1916)
** John Gabriel Soltis: “The Duluth Convention,” (1916)
** Alex Georgian: “The State Convention,” (1916)
** Sigmond N. Slonim: “What the Convention Accomplished,” (1916)
** Sophie Carlson: “The Finnish Amendment,” (1916)
** Emanuel Julius: “Eugene V. Debs, Interviewed for Appeal, Sees Bright Chance for His Election to the United States Congress: ‘Voters Sure to Come to Us,’ Says Veteran Champion of the Working Class–Comrades Throughout the Country Support the Campaign with Silver Ballots–Fifth Indiana District Being Flooded with Socialist Literature,” (1916)
** James Oneal: “A Short Cut to Revolution,” (1916)
** Louis Kopelin: “A Criticism and a Confession,” (1917)
** Appeal to Reason: “’Socialize Now–Railroads First!’ That is the Appeal’s Plan of Action,” (1917)
** Leo Trotzki: “A Revolutionist’s Career,” (1917)
** Henry Ollikainen: “The Reds and the Yellows,” (1917)
** John Reed: “Why I Am Against Conscription: An Open Letter to Members of Congress,” (1917)
** A.L. Sugarman: “Letter to the Editor of New Times,” (1917)
** Appeal to Reason: “Stand United!” (1917)
** Advance: “Dr. M. Goldfarb Will Return to Work in Russia: Revolution Has Opened Way for Him to Continue Work for the Bund, Halted in 1913 by the Romanov Autocracy– He is Member of ACW of A.” (1917)
** Eugene V. Debs: “The Majority Report,” (1917)
** Appeal to Reason: “Thou Art Not Dead, O Liberty! While Plutocratic Interests Prussianize the United States, True Americans Who Believe in Democracy and Peace Hold Inspiring Conference at New York, and Organize Permanent People’s Council to Fight for Freedom in this Country,” (1917)
** St. Louis Labor: “Socialist Peace Plan Wins! President Wilson Adopts Bolsheviki Policy: Socialists of Nation Rally to Back Them Up,” (1918)
** Alfred Wagenknecht: “Statement to the American Socialist Movement when Sentence was Affirmed,” (1918)
** Louis Kopelin: “Open Letter to George Goebel, SPA NEC member, in Newark, NJ, from , Editor of The New Appeal, in Girard, KS, January 19, 1918.” (1918)
** Ludwig Lore: “Our National Executive Committee,” (1918)
** “Leaflet of the Socialist Propaganda League for a Meeting Held in New York City, Feb. 15, 1918.”
** J. Louis Engdahl: “Food Kaisers,” (1918)
** Alexis E. Georgian: “State Convention,” (1918)
** “Resolution of the Executive Committee of the First United Russian Convention Sent to President Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1918.”
** “Special Socialist National Convention Proposed by Local St. Louis, Mo.” (1918)
** Allan L. Benson: “Benson Scores Proposal to Withdraw US Army,” (1918)
** Eugene V. Debs: “Karl Marx the Man: An Appreciation,” (1918)
** Carl D. Thompson: “The Right Socialist Platform,” (1918)
** Louis Kopelin: “Socialists Must Clean House or Begin Anew.” (1918)
** Eugene V. Debs: “The Russian Revolution and the Germans [excerpt],” (1918)
** Emanuel Haldeman-Julius: “So Long, Louis! Our Hearts Are With You!” (1918)
** G.A. Hoehn: “Beware of Red Flag Exploiters! An Editorial from ,” (1918)
* Paul Lafargue: Dreptul la lene (1880)
* Ernest Mandel: Om byråkratin. En analys av arbetarrörelsens ständigt hotande fara (1969)
* D. Harber: Three Short Letters to Leon Trotsky (1933)
* D. Harber: 4 Internal Bulletins/Documents 1940 – 1943
* D. Harber: Religion in the Soviet Union Part I (1945)
* D. Harber: Religion in the Soviet Union Part II (1945)
* D. Harber: The Nationalist Degeneration of Stalinism (1945)

La Bataille Socialiste:

* Andreu Nin: Le problème des organes du pouvoir dans la Révolution espagnole (1937)
* Jacques Danos/Marcel Gibelin: Les caractères propres des occupations françaises en 1936 (1952)
* Julius Martov: Extrait sur les soviets (1919)
* Theodor Dan: Avant-propos à “Le bolchevisme mondial” de Martov (1923)

Rassembler, diffuser les archives des révolutionnaires (RaDAR) ehemals Association pour la sauvegarde de la mémoire de la section française de la IVe internationale (ASMSFQI):

* Comité français pour la IVe internationale: La Vérité, 15. Dezember 1942
* Parti communiste internationaliste (PCI): L’Etincelle, Februar-März 1947
* Parti communiste internationaliste (PCI): IVe internationale, März 1946
* Parti communiste internationaliste (PCI): L’information du militant, November 1945
* Parti communiste internationaliste (PCI): La Vérité, Oktober 1949
* Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR): Cahiers de la taupe, Mai-Juni 1978
* Ligue communiste (LC): La nature de l’Etat soviétique (1970)
* Ligue communiste (LC): Taupe rouge, 15. Januar 1972
* Jeunesse communiste révolutionnaire (JCR): Octobre, März 1967
* Jeunesse communiste révolutionnaire (JCR): Bulletin intérieur, 11. Oktober 1967

LibCom:

* Lucio Colletti: Introduction to Marx’s early writings (1975, der Autor war bis Mitte der 1970er ein bekannter undogmatischer Marxist, wurde dann Sozialdemokrat und schloss sich Mitte der 1990er Berlusconi an, dessen Forza Italia er von 1996 bis zu seinem Tode 2001 in der italienischen Abgeordnetenkammer vertrat)
* Anarchist groups in Poland – Lódź 1905 – 1939 (mit Originaldokumenten)
* Robert Lumley: Institutionalization from below: The unions and social movements – 1970s Italy (1970)
* Bruno Ramirez: The working class struggle against the crisis: self-reduction of prices in Italy (1975)

Materialien zur Analyse von Opposition (MAO):

* Schülerbewegung in Göttingen (1967-1971)
* Schülerbewegung in Göttingen: Kommunistische Schülerfront (KSF) und Sozialistischer Schülerbund (SSG bzw. SSB)
* Schülerbewegung in Göttingen: Kommunistischer Oberschülerbund (KOB)
* Northeim

Kasama:

* Alexandra Kollontai: Communist Morality Around Intimate Relations (1921)

La Presse Anarchiste:

* L’Autonomie Individuelle n°4, August 1887

Centro de Documentación de los Movimientos Armados (CeDeMA):

* Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR): Llamamiento al pueblo peruano (1965)
* Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG): La URNG ante la visita del Papa (1983)
* Partido Comunista de El Salvador (PCS): Programa Agrario del Partido Comunista de El Salvador (1964)
* Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres – Patria Libre (EGP-PL): El Nuevo Orden Mundial y los problemas cotidianos (1997)

Collectif Smolny:

* Victor Kaïourov (1876-1936)

Austrian Newspapers Online (ANNO):

* Vorarlberger Wacht (1917-1938, nach dem Februaraufstand 1934 wurde die sozialdemokratische Zeitung enteignet und als Tageszeitung des klerikalen, „austrofaschistischen“ Ständestaates weiter herausgegeben)

Die Ausgabe der Vorarlberger Wacht vom 15. November 1917, auf der Titelseite die Meldung „Russland sozialistische Republik“, auf der letzten Seite eine Anzeige für Kriegsanleihen

Irish Left Archive auf The Cedar Lounge Revolution:

* 1916-1966: What has happened? (1966)

Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung:

* regionale Zeitschriften der Naturfreunde aus der Weimarer Zeit:
** Am Wege (1924-1932, Naturfreunde Thüringen)
** Berg frei (1922-1932, Pfalz)
** Der Bergwanderer (1921-1923, Südbayern)
** Fahrtgenoß, Monatsschrift für proletarisches Wandern (1922-1928, Brandenburg)
** Mitteilungsblatt des Gaues Brandenburg im Touristen-Verein „Die Naturfreunde“ (1927-1928)
** Die Naturfreunde (1925, Rheinland)
** Rheinisches Land (1926-1928)
** Südbayerischer Wanderer (1924-1928)
** Der Wanderer (1930-1933)
** Der westdeutsche Naturfreund (1929-1930, Rheinland u. Westfalen)
* Archiv für Sozialgeschichte (1961-2007)

Sanhati

* Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI(ML)): Liberation, Oktober 1969, März 1970, April 1970 (hiermit sind alle Ausgaben 1967-1972 auf Sanhati online)

Rustbelt Radical:

* Rosa Luxemburg: Stagnation and Progress in Marxism (1903)

Vermischtes aus Britannien

1.) Mehr als 15 Jahre lang hat die Firma The Consulting Association (TCA) in Droitwich, Worcestershire für die britischen Bauunternehmen eine schwarze Liste mit Eintragungen zu 3.200 BauarbeiterInnen erstellt, verwaltet und an Baufirmen wie Taylor Woodrow, Laing O’Rourke und Balfour Beatty weiter gereicht:

„Data included information concerning personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history, it added.

Comments included „lazy and a trouble stirrer“, „Ex shop steward. Definite problems. No Go“ and „Communist Party“.

Employers paid £3,000 as an annual fee, and £2.20 for individual details, the ICO said.

…

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of building workers union Ucatt, said: „Take one of the issues that we have in the construction industry: we have just under two people killed every week through bad health and safety practices and if a whistleblower then raises these issues, then obviously he has found his name on this list.“

2.) Was tun bei Entlassungen? … Den Betrieb besetzen, so geschehen bei der Verpackungsfirma Prisme Packaging in Dundee/Schottland:

„In an echo of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ occupation in 1971, 12 employees staged a sit-in protest after losing their jobs – by locking themselves behind the gates of a cardboard box manufacturing company in Dundee.

The five men and seven women – all non-union members – had been told the company, Prisme Packaging, has no money with which to fund their redundancy payments. They have vowed to continue their occupation until they receive statutory redundancy money.

One of the protesters said: „We want to make other employers think twice before they make people like us redundant.

„If 12 of us can do it then anybody can, and we will hold out for as long as it takes.“„

3.) Die neue The Commune (Nr.3):

Zum 25. Jahrestag des Beginns des Bergarbeiterstreiks in Britannien 1984/85

Kantinenboykott durch ArbeiterInnen im Stahlwerk Esfahan/Iran

Eine nachahmenswerte Aktion, bei welcher sich die Kernbelegschaft mit mit den prekär Beschftigten solidarisch zeigt, gefunden auf der Webseite des Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network (IWSN):

Thousands of Esfahan Steel workers start symbolic food boycott

The Esfahan Steel Mill exploits 18,000 workers. These workers are divided into two groups: 10,000 workers of sub-contracting companies and 8,000 official workers. The first group of workers have worse working conditions, job security and pay than the second group.

Although the 10,000 sub-contracted workers have protested against the bad conditions and the open discrimination several times, they have got nowhere. On February 28 workers from both groups joined forces and begun a symbolic food boycott – they will not be eating the food in the factory’s restaurants.

Despite the attempts of management and the government to drive a wedge between them, the sub-contracted and official workers are united in this symbolic struggle and have demanded better pay and conditions for the sub-contracted workers.

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network, 3 March 2009

Source: Co-ordination Committee for the Creation of Labour Organisations