Urgent call for solidarity!

Dear comrades!

We have received a fax and an e-mail from the CNT-AIT of Sevilla, and they ask us to immediately initiate an URGENT ACTION in support of the CNT-AIT cleaning workers of TOMARES. They have today, the 11^th of May, been on strike for 56 days to make the company fulfil an agreement made last year, where the company promised to have fixed contracts and improvements of the work conditions. The further background of the strike is described in the next.

More information can be found at http://www.cnt.es/tomares

The CNT has also a permanent information telephone on +34 600 019 658.

-Send as soon as possible economical support to the bank account and notify that it is for the striking Tomares workers.

-Send faxes, letters, e-mails in support of the workers and protests to the directions mentioned of the company Ferrovial and the ”socialist” Mayoress Antonia Hierro.

According to an information we have received from the CNT-AIT , the firm Ferrovial will be profiting of the Iraq invasion as they have made contracts with the new regime, and the ”socialist” Mayoress Antonia Hierro, who said stop the wars against Iraq, now helps Ferrovial on its war against the workers.

THESE WORKERS SHALL WIN THE STRIKE-

SOLIDARITY WITH THE TOMARES WORKERS!

Oslo the 11^th of May 2003

With anarchosyndicalist greetings

from the IWA-Secretariat

Call for Solidarity

We are on strike for 56 days now

         We need financial support, please, send your contribution to

         Banco Santander Central Hispano

         Account nº:

We also need your support to:

• Make protest actions at the offices and interests (works, contracts,...) of the firm FERROVIAL
• Actively support the different actions we have prepared.
• Send solidarity messages to the following addresses:

·         Grupo Ferrovial head office:  c/ Príncipe de Vergara nº 135, 28002 Madrid. Fax 91 586 26 77. e-mail@ferrovial.es.

·         Ferrovial Services in Andalucia, head office:  polígono industrial La Paz, parcela 41, Huelva. Fax: 959 228 452

·         Tomares City Council, Mayoress Antonia Hierro:  c/ Tomás Ibarra, Tomares (Sevilla). Fax: 954 15 38 54. email: ahierro@interbook.net

The text could be something like:

SOLIDARITY WITH THE WORKERS ON STRIKE OF THE TOMARES PUBLIC CLEANING SERVICE.

WHOEVER BREAKS THE STRIKE, BREAKS SOCIAL PEACE.

WE ARE GOING TO WIN THIS STRIKE.

FOR THE STABILITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT AND THE RIGHT TO WORK WITH DIGNITY.

(*) Permanent information telephone about the strike:  600 019 658

CNT-AIT
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
Sección Sindical de la Limpieza Pública de Tomares

(Workplace Union Section at the Tomares Public Cleaning Service)

STRIKE AT THE TOMARES PUBLIC

CLEANING SERVICE ­ BACKGROUND

(Sunday, 11th of May, 2003: 56 days on strike)

BACKGROUND

Last year, after 22 days on strike, on the 9th of March 2002, the CNT signed up an agreement with the company FERROVIAL SERVICIOS S.A. (Ferroser), ratified by the City Council Board, which ended up with the strike and that meant a change into contracts for an indefinite time for all the staff in the public cleaning service (formerly PILSA) and a number of improvements in the work conditions.

On the 17th March, we begun a strike, for an indefinite time, in the litter collection and street cleaning in Tomares, convoked by the C.N.T.

The reasons we had for the strike were the menaces of dismissals by the company ”Ferrovial Servicios, S.A.”, the breach of the 9 March 2002 agreement by the company and their refusal to negotiate a collective agreement within the company based on the above mentioned agreements.

FOLLOW UP OF THE STRIKE

The strike is being followed by almost the entire staff with the only exceptions of the official in charge and a worker on sick leave.

MINIMUM SERVICES

These were fixed around a 50% of the usual services. Despite these are disproportionate (double than the ones fixed for the strike last year), the CNT has respected them scrupulously. The same cannot be said about the company ”Ferroser” and the Tomares City Council.

THE COMPANY POSITION

Unfulfilment of the minimum services: damage of union freedom and the right to strike.

Apart from the minimum services truck, they use every day one or two more trucks with workers brought from Huelva. They have employed 5 new workers in order to break the strike (a driver, a labourer-driver, two additional labourers and a mechanic). Indeed, they have subcontracted another company to the collection of  goods and chattels and the pruning remains. These and other damages to the right to strike have been denounced subsequently for breach of fundamental rights, and will very soon have trial, after which we will present a complaint for crime against the workers rights.

Reprisal against the strike.

Since the beginning of the strike, the company has dismissed a total of 17 workers. Apart from that, they have always been trying to break the strike with pressure and threats. And finally they have tried to break it with an agreement of ”limited efficiency” with the leaders of the UGT Public Services Union, which was prevented by the UGT workplace union members in the company, themselves.

POSITION OF THE MAYORESS ANTONIA HIERRO

Disproportionate police deployment.

The Mayoress has prepared an enormous police deployment, with the Tomares local police reinforced by police from other villages in the Aljarafe, and by the Civil Guard and the Court Police. With them she protects and supports the damage the company makes to the constitutional rights, and tries to scare the workers and the CNT. A shame.

Total support to the company.

At all moments the Mayoress Antonia Hierro has taken the part of the company, and further more. She has never tried to mediate to solve the conflict, not even has she shown any understanding of the workers position. She has done everything possible to break the strike and to hinder a negotiated solution.

Lies and libel.

Since the beginning of the strike she has tried to criminalise the workers. Since the very first moment she has circulated tendentious information. The top of it all has been her recent proclamation sent to all citizens (we enclose a copy of the proclamation and the answer of the CNT workers).

POSITION OF THE WORKERS

Unity of the staff.

In spite of all the efforts of the company and the mayoress to break the strike, the staff remain united and are decided to do whatever is necessary in order to save the employments and proper work conditions. Under the circumstances, there is no alternative.

Actions Plan.

Additionally, we prepare 3 or 4 different actions every week: 3 marches from Tomares to Sevilla have already taken place, a ”Full-Monty” (striptease) at the entrance of the city council building, etc.

Other main action: 1st May demonstration in Tomares, called by the CNT all throughout Andalucia with the slogan ”Their world destroys us. Let us build up ours”.

Legal proceedings already started or still to be presented by the workers and the C.N.T.

THE WORKERS CLAIM

• The guarantee of employment stability (employment guarantee clause allowing the worker suffering a dismissal, that has been declared inadmissible, to demand readmission).
• To have the precarious contracts changed into new ones for an indefinite time.
• The cancellation of all sanctions and disciplinary files occoured during the strike.
• Full respect of the agreement of 9 March 2002 in all that regards working day, wages and social rights.
• To sign a company collective agreement based on the agreement of 9 March 2002 and the sector collective agreement: we want to be compared in rights to the labor staff in the City Council.

NEGOTIATIONS DURING THE STRIKE

At the negotiation previous to the commencement of the strike, an agreement was almost reached based on 5 minimum issues:

1. Employment guarantee clause until the signing of a collective agreement.
2. Immediate commencement of negotiations for a collective agreement.
3. Change of the precarious contracts into new ones for and indefinite time.
4. Immediate start of work shifts according to the agreement of last year and
5. The company agreement would have to be approved by the workers assembly. The negotiation was broken because the company demanded the withdrawal of all the denounces presented for a complete year of unfulfilment. We did accept to withdraw the  denounces for changing the working conditions and to include, as a first point in the negotiation, an extra-court resolution of the claims for wages. The company did not accept.

At the negotiation that took place on the first days of the strike, the company accepted us not to withdraw the denounces, but imposed that the negotiation did not depart from the agreement of the 9 March 2002. Such a thing is not acceptable.

The last attempt to negotiate, with the Provincial Delegate of Employment, was closed with an initial agreement between the company and the workers based on the stablished minimum (and the change of the disciplinary dismissals into temporary adjournment of employment and pay). But it was the Provincial Delegate who, unaccountably, did not want to sign the agreement, and then also the company refused to sign. ¿Which was the part of the Mayoress Antonia Hierro in it all?

PRESENT SITUATION OF THE CONFLICT AND PROSPECTS.

The strike goes on and there is no attitude on the side of the company or the Mayoress to find a negotiated solution to the conflict.

The situation will change once the Social Court gives a sentence about the damage to the right to strike and prevents the company from keep on unfulfilling the minimum services.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE STRIKE

More information about the strike on: http://www.cnt.es/tomares
or on http://tomaresresiste.en.eresmas.com

Permanent Information Telephone (CNT-Tomares): 600 019 658