Statement by Russian anarcho-syndicalists and anarchists on the situation in Kazakhstan
We, Anarcho-syndicalists and Anarchists of Russia express our full and complete solidarity with the social protest of the working people of Kazakhstan and send them our comradely greetings!
The current explosion of social protest in Kazakhstan, one of the most outstanding and brightest since the beginning of the new century, has become the apogee of the wave of the strike struggle of oil workers and other categories of workers in the country, which has not stopped since last summer.
Eighty-five years later, the struggle continues, Ferrer, Ascaso, Durruti! They symbolize and remind us of so many anonymous people who gave their lives for the ideals of freedom and social justice.
Week_2021_no_lines_IG_en_smallThis year’s “Week” was accompanied by activities in at least 17 countries. IWA organizations informed about the Week in various ways – some took actions in the streets, some mobilized and prepared for conflicts, some shared experience from their conflicts, and some simply published and spread the information the statement. Let’s evaluate this year’s Week.
Evaluation of the second International Week Against Unpaid Wages
We are happy to announce that, as part of the International Week Against Unpaid Wages, we prepared an English version of our pamphlet related to our workplace conflicts between years 2015 and 2019. The publication called "How We Coped with Problems at Work. Conflicts of Priama Akcia Union in 2015-2019" provides a detailed description of conflicts in all their stages. It contains photos from actions, interviews with the workers, leaflets and a short analysis of hospitality sector where most of the conflicts took place.
This was our fastest victory so far. It took just eight days from a collective delivery of a demand letter for the former veterinary hospital worker to receive the money in her account. Same as in our last case in 2019, we succeeded before the conflict went into the public phase, since the boss paid the amount owed within a deadline. We are thankful to all people who came out to support the worker during the letter delivery and wanted to join the planned solidarity campaign! In this article you will find more information about the conflict and an interview with the worker.
The situation of a de facto "sanitary dictatorship" and a ban on holding public demonstrations, like last year, force KRAS to refuse to hold any street actions, including within the framework of this campaign against non-payment of wages. In these conditions, we limit ourselves to disseminating information about conflicts related to non-payment of wages and about the experience of resistance and to promote the current international campaign.
In October 2020, ZSP published „Fighting Back”, a longer article detailing various examples of how the union has fought against different types of wage theft. (The article is available here in English: https://zsp.net.pl/files/ZSP-IWA-against-unpaid-wages-2020.pdf) The article was written to precede the International Week of Action against Unpaid Wages which the IWA held from October 12-18, 2020. It was decided to repeat the week of actions again, this time from October 11-17, 2021.
When we took part in the 2019 climate strikes, we couldn’t imagine that further protests would be paralysed by pandemic. And when the pandemic came, it seemed that, with the apparent decline of some industries some, the state of the planet would improve, at least minimally. But it turns out that we are actually worse off than we thought. The last two years have confirmed that, if there is any hope, the necessary changes will have to address the real causes of the problems. And much more than just touch.
Anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists of Russia send comradely greetings to the working people of Italy!
LONG LIVE FIGHTERING TRIEST!
“(...) we are neither for the government of the majority, nor for the government of the minority; neither for democracy nor for dictatorship. We are for the abolition of the police system" (Errico Malatesta, 1926)
Those of us who are part of Solidaridad Obrera - AIT in the Valparaíso Region are in a process of anarcho-syndicalist agitation, organizational development, incorporation of new militants, and the establishment of our own space.
