The Cycle of Struggles of Logistics Workers in Italy
Interview during the meeting of European base unions | Berlin, March 17, 2014
Karim, student/logistics worker: I was a university student in Marocco. I studied in my last year.
Suddenly my father came and said:
"Look, I have found a work contract in Italy. If you want to go..."
I said: "But I still go to university,
and on TV I saw
that there is a terribly crisis in Italy and Europe,
and people do not find work."
He answered: "If there was a crisis then they would not send this work contract!
Then they would not look for people abroad. Are you joking?
The Italians do not want to work.
They do not want to do certain jobs.
There are jobs, but these people do not want to do them."
So he convinced me. "You are right," I said.
"If there was no demand, they would not ask me to come.
They would not come to Marocco to search for me."
So I agreed, but not just like that.
First I wanted to know what I would earn.
They showed me the contract.
The contract said: 1.200 euros basic wage
plus two monthly wages extra per year.
I calculated and thought,
if I go to Italy I need a few things, the rent, the first few days...
Therefore, I sold what I had in order to have at least 5,000 to 6,000 euros with me
so I could stay afloat at the beginning
when I do not speak the language and don't know a lot of things.
So I sold everything I had and came here.
When I got my first wages later, I realized
that the whole wage slip was wrong.
I earn 600 to 700 euros when there is not much work to do.
When there is nothing to do I work 4 or 5 hours.
When there is a lot to do I work 16 hours. That is obligatory!
If I did not work 15 or 16 hours they would fire me the next day.
That means I am being blackmailed, and there is no escape.
Then I started calculating and realized that I was getting cheated.
The wage was wrong, and at the end of the year I did not get the two extra monthly wages
no paid holidays, nothing!
So I am being cheated, and I cannot go back either
since I sold everything I owned.
So I am trapped.
When some of us come back people in Marocco often think
that they cannot work, that they don't want to work.
Therefore, they treat them very badly.
But the reality is very different:
It is impossible to cope with the situation here, the level of exploitation...
You are used to live in a certain way,
and suddenly you have to deal with the blackmail, by these wages
and the residence permit.
This incredible arrogance of the foremen who treat you badly and insult you.
That way I spent 5 year in this warehouse
until the self-organization of the workers started initiated by S.I. Cobas.
That is when the struggle started, and now we are satisfied at work,
nearly without foremen, and nobody shouts at you any more.
All know what they have to do.
We get the two extra monthly wages, paid holiday.
I am not afraid anymore.
Because when someone got ill earlier and could not work
they still had to show up,
otherwise, if the boss heard that you could not work, he fired you!
There are people who work with two or three slipped discs!
Slipped disc, that is when you break your back and cannot work at all.
I know some peole in different warehouses
who do work with slipped discs!
That is a level of exploitation that is higher than in the times of the feudal labor service.
They have the doctor's certificate and show it to the employer and he says:
"If you want to work, work, if not, go home. I don't five a f**k."
Like with a lemon: I juice it, press out as much as possible;
and there is still something to squeeze out, that's good;
but if you are finished, then ciao and bye bye!"
I am the national coordinator of S.I. Cobas.
"Sindacato Intercategoriale Cobas" (intercategorical union base committees)
In Italian Cobas means "base committee".
Intercategorial union, because we have no trade union association.
We represent all workers, whether they are mail carriers or whatever.
We don't think that it is important to divide the union according to sectors.
Because all proletarians are proletarians, in specific situations
but today, when capitalism is in crisis,
it creates the same conditions for all.
The labor laws are very similar everywhere.
There are small differences, but we tend to emphasize not the differences
but whatever unites the workers, not what divides them.
I began in '68 at the university, at the Politechnic in Milano.
I studied engineering.
After I worked in a school
I began to work in a metalworking factory
in order to connect to the workers and learn.
Then I was a unionist for two years, at the trade union associations.
Then I realized it was all about control, and I went back to the school.
After that, starting in 1972, I was more activ politically than in a union.
Then me and some other comrades
started to develop a practice of intervention inside companies.
We set up the most important workers' groups,
above all in the metal industry in Italy.
We made most of our experiences in the auto sector.
At FIAT we had the strongest and most important delegates in the auto sector.
We had the majority of the delegates - against the main trade union associations.
That's where we made our first experiences,
since we won the first battle against the trade union associations there.
Then, in the 90s, we started to expand our critique
of the trade union associations which are more integrated into the state.
And then the base unions were formed.
Around 1990, 1993, more or less.
That was my start in a base union, which was called Slai Cobas
and was present mostly in the metal industry, the auto sector.
Over the years I had a lot of experiences with the Romani people
because I organized mainly Romani migrants.
For three or four years I organized around 1,000 Romanis in Milano.
At the time we worked mostly with migrants.
In Italy, the Romanis were mostly seasonal workers at the time,
from Romania, Yugoslawia, Albania; they worked on the fields.
But they were not the Romanis of the "old type".
This experience gave us an understanding of the situation of migrants.
I became a communist when I was young.
I went inside the factory because of a political decision for social engagement.
I spent nearly ten years there, in a big metalworking factory.
I was a shopfloor delegate, and we played an active role in many struggles,
even though the restructuring
between the late 70s and early 80s
led to defeats of this movement.
After that I was politically active for 20 years
until I finally broke with a political organization
that had turned into a sect.
I searched politically and in the movement for a way,
at the beginning mostly with migrant workers,
by setting up schools for teaching Italian to foreigners
and by participating in the movement of migrants that existed in Milano.
Still, there was a weak point:
Either it consists of migrants' organizations with national and ethnic characteristics,
which often stay confined to the countries of origin
and often have links to the governments there,
or it tries to be a movement uniting all migrants,
but that never worked in Italy. Strong organizations were never founded,
like those that have existed, for instance, in France at certain times.
It is a fact that a migrant is also a worker
and, therefore, experiences capitalist exploitation.
Still, struggles explicitly for their rights as migrants, e.g. the right of residence,
are translated into symbolic actions,
but without generating any strength.
In contrast, the struggles in the logistics sector
which were started by migrants as exploited workers
immediately expressed considerable strength and energy,
and they even became a model for Italian workers.
Last year I devoted a large part of my time to these struggles.
I participated in the blockades
and organized open consultations of S.I.Cobas in Piacenza.
Most of the time workers come alone to speak about their problems.
One was fired, another one got a low wage or was mobbed at the workplace.
As long as they are alone, it is difficult to find a militant answer.
Then you have to use all available legal means.
Or you exert pressure by using the fact that you have accumulated power in some places.
It is interesting to see how the exploitation breaks ground:
The exploitation is increasingly organized illegally,
contracts are not respected, wage calculations are wrong,
and in order to avoid paying social insurance premiums and overtime
many working hours are not listed on the wage slips.
Some of these hours are noted as commuting time, so that no premiums have to be paid.
When these people retire they will not get a pension.
It is also possible that groups of workers show up.
That happens nearly every day or week, because they realize they were robbed.
And then they can found a new Cobas.
A group of workers says: "Okay, then we enlist in S.I.Cobas."
We tell them then: "Look for others, because as long as you are alone
we can go to court
but you need to know that you will most probably be fired then!
They will make it impossible for you to work there.
But if you get 10 others like you,
then we can fight against a dismissal,
we can build up power and then push through our rights."
The logistics sector is vital for capital,
not only in Italy - on the international level.
It was structured in a form that includes subcontractors.
The contractors, the parent companies, subcontract another smaller company,
for instance, the SRL, which subcontracts another company,
which subcontracts the association of cooperatives, which subcontracts small cooperatives.
These small cooperatives look for people who are supposed to work for the companies.
At the same time, they hide the face of the company itself.
In that way they can exploit those who work.
Therefore, the majority of workers in the logistics sector are migrants.
The majority is brought here from other countries.
Even through there are many people in Italy who are trying to find work
they are looking for people who are prepard to get exploited.
They don't even give them a chance to learn the language
or enough time to keep up the contact with their countries.
They come here and have to work up to 16 hours per day.
There are people who work up to 16 hours per day
and in their wage slip only 40 or 80 working hours are listed.
Unbearable, the extent of exploitation, regarding the people as humans
and regarding the wage payments.
Those who work for these cooperatives
who have mostly only temporary residence permits, had always been too scared to protest
because protesting meant that you were fired,
and being fired means to lose the temporary residence permit.
Because the law, like the Bossi-Fini-law, says that
when you lose your job
you also lose your residence permit, and you have to go home.
That means they were always blackmailed at work.
They did not get support from the institutions.
or any support from the society.
If they go to the unions, for instance, they hear:
"Your bosses are too powerful. You just risk losing your job!
Carry on doing your job, otherwise you will get problems."
These workers often went to the labor court,
but nobody has ever reacted.
No actions by the labor inspectorate and the financial police.
Newspapers don't report this on the logistics sector and don't want to know about it.
The logistics sector is about the circulation of commodities.
We do not know what commodities are transported in these boxes.
If you look at who is working with these cooperatives
you see that they are all from Southern Italy.
Over time we realized that there are close relations
between the mafia, the logistics sector and the cooperatives.
So we understood that the fear of the labor inspectorate
has to do with the fact that the mafia is managing the whole thing.
The people who worked in the warehouses did not know what they should do
and who they should turn to.
The movement was started a short while ago with this union S.I.Cobas.
It started to explain to the people in the warehouses
that the only chance to defend yourself lies in the self-organization of the workers.
That we have to organize and defend ourselves:
"Nobody defends you, if you do not start to fight.
That is the only chance to improve your situation."
Here, the struggles begann in the biggest warehouses,
like at DHL, TNT, and GLS.
Those are the best known and biggest international warehouses.
It began in several cities.
Many workers work in these warehouses, 300 to 500 in each of them.
These workers have started to self-organize,
to go outside, and to block the warehouses.
They constitute some power.
They have understood that unity among the workers bears great power
that can free itself.
I just found my role in the logistics sector when I started to get involved.
I have to say that the beginning was difficult
because I was faced with the mafia and the camorra, and that wasn't fun.
That means, at the start it was rather a struggle fought on the physical level.
But through all the experience I had,
and because I was not a leader,
I was capable to be connected to all movements,
and I was seen as a reference point by all movements that came together.
That was decisive
because at the beginning the workers did not come together.
Only few organized themselves then.
But when the others saw that 100 people stood in front of the company,
willing to stand there as strike pickets,
everyone came and started to organize themselves.
It was like opening a bottle of champagne, and then it just begann to bubble.
This became an important factor.
The first struggle lasted 8 months.
In a single warehouse - 8 months.
But it was wonderful because we won on all levels.
Where was that? - In Origgio, north of Milano. The Bennet.
In that warehouse all problems of the comrades
with expressing their standpoints, dissolved.
Like flies on a pile of shit. Everyone came.
All Social Centers, all ex-brigadists, all ex-ex this and that.
This fight became a symbol for the struggles in Milano,
for the renascence of conflicts.
Already after the first victory they understood that this was a different movement,
and when we intervened in a second company
we faced enormous resistance and lost.
The first defeat. The second company and the first defeat.
18 sacked workers.
This company was organized by the English Post.
We lost because they deployed 50 policemen there, 24 hours a day, for 43 days.
As if it was Zeica d'Italia, that is weapons production.
Problably, there was an arrangement between the minister
and this English company that is linked to the English Post.
It became a zone we could not enter.
They had intuitively seen the danger.
Because of the movement's lack of power to act on the national level
this struggle was the only victorious.
They understood that something had happened that from a bourgois perspective
had to be suppressed immediately.
On the other hand, by using so much energy against the struggle
they made it also bigger.
From the start we followed the example of the Wobblies in the US.
We moved the cooperatives' workers from one cooperative to the next.
We never held the workers in their own company.
We always emphasized their common interests
and pointed out that the workers have to create more connections among themselves
to be able to fight back in the logistics sector.
Because this sector was weaker than other sectors.
First it seemed they were strong, but since we acted in illegal ways
they were much weaker than us.
During strike pickets, we are not allowed
to block the transport of commodities, means or production or people.
However, we blocked everything, in a completely illegal manner.
We stood for 6 or 7 hours, or for 2 or 3 days, and blocked their trucks etc.
Open conflicts, complaints to the police...
But then we realized we could win,
and each time we went on strike, even just for 4 or 5 hours
the bosses lost 200,000 or 300,000 euros.
And after the first few times it was clear that we had to be taken serious.
That was the final result.
That lead to the complaints at the police. I have 38 complaints against me.
And now the lawsuits are happening.
I have a three year ban for one city.
We have a series of legal cases in front of us.
These workers have started to self-organize and carry out large strikes.
They had their forged wages slips as evidence.
The wage slips with 0 to 40 hours per month...
So they had evidence they could present to the judges, to the public,
and to the labor inspectorate,
that their protest was reasonable.
Besides the struggle they also went to court.
So they started to win over territory.
And they have done more:
The people from the big warehouses went to those in the small warehouses
and told them they had won in the struggle for their rights,
and that they are not alone.
If they needed support from the other warehouses they would all come and help.
That's how it happened in Piacenza, at IKEA.
There were only few people who protested and took part in the strike,
just 10 out of 300 workers there! Only 10 went on strike.
But people from other warehouses came to support the struggle!
Every day many people came over from TNT and other warehouses.
They blocked the gates at IKEA for four months.
They won the reinstatement of workers and correct wage calculations.
And their dignity was restored. Now they work with the heads up and without fear.
And all the others who could not overcome their fear
have seen the victory, and they all went to register
and take part in the self-organization of workers.
This struggle has not only united the different warehouses
and the different nationalities within the warehouses
- since in every warehouse we find up to 16 nationalities:
Africans, Europeans, people from the Americas.
Apart from that, the struggle brought some unions together
that had been sleeping beforehand.
The struggle has united the Social Centers.
There are many Social Centers in Italy, but they are not connected.
There was a Social Center in Milano that had no connections
to Social Centers in Bologna or in Naples.
But in this struggle the Social Centers have declared their solidarity
with the logistics workers in Naples, Bologna, and Milano.
When there is a all-Italian demonstration of logistics workers
all segments meet at the same demonstration.
They communicate with each other and start to overcome the division.
So we started to build a militant movement,
not only in the logistics sector. The logistics workers often
go to demonstrations for housing rights
and also support other sectors.
They don't just focus on the logistics sector.
Now they help the metal workers, too.
They have already helped the hotel workers.
So we conquer different sectors and different warehouses now.
With this struggle from below we won against the cooperatives
and the companies.
But there is a company that creates more problems for us.
We still fight a fierce battle there.
That warehouse is Granarolo in Bologna.
The workers worked in cooperatives that are members of an association of cooperatives
called SGB. It works for a logistics firm called CTL
that is part of the contractor Granarolo.
So there is a hierarchy with several levels
before you get to the ordinary workers.
These cooperatives cut their wages by 35 percent.
With a wage that was already wrongly calculated.
They earn about 1,000 to 1,200 euros per month,
including overtime!
And then they started to cut the wage by 35 percent.
These workers went to the trade union associations and asked
how it is possible that this company takes away 35 percent
in a warehouse that allegedly suffers from the crisis while I work overtime.
So I work and produce, and they pull my leg.
They say that there is the crisis, and that I have to give them 35 percent of my wage.
Now they pay me 600 euros per month, 700 euros. What shall I do?
The answer of the trade union associations:
"Go and work, you are lucky you have a job."
Then the workers said: Where the hell do we live?
What kind of logic is that?
And they started to look for support.
And they saw that there was this movement...
Still, Granarolo is a bit special.
That is no well-known international logistics company.
That is a dairy factory, with international reputation, active in China, Europe, Africa.
It is a powerful company.
ABut it has no connections to the well-known logistics companies.
They had heard about the stuggle in the logistics sector, and went to register.
The only thing the union told them was:
"You have to self-organize, like the others have done before, and go on strike."
And then they went on strike.
One day after the strike began a letter arrived: "You are all dismissed!"
51 workers were fired after their first strike.
The company hired new workers.
The old workers went to the labor inspectorate, to the carabinieri, the financial police
and complained about their dismissal after one day of strike,
the hiring of new workers who did black work,
workers who had worked in other branches of the company.
They had hired new workers to substitute those who had been sacked after the strike.
No reaction!
They didn't have to say more about this. We really had to blockade this warehouse.
Workers from all other warehouses went there to support them.
They went in front of the warehouse
in order to prevent workers and commodities from going in and out.
At this point the institutions and the prefecture intervened immediately:
They came with many policemen and attacked the people with truncheons
to clear the way for workers and commodities.
They thought that the workers get scared and do not come back.
But next day the workers came back for the blockade.
And also the next day, for one month, two, three months...
They tried threats, and we managed to get 380 police complaints.
Only for this warehouse!
They tried to use gas which is illegal in Bologna.
They used it, they used truncheons, and many comrades were arrested.
But despite this repression the struggle continued.
We did not stop. Finally they intervened.
Granarolo did not want to intervene!
The LegaCoop, an association of cooperatives, intervened.
They signed an agreement:
The director of LegaCoop, the warehouse which had sacked the people,
the trade union associations, the prefect himself,
all signed an agreement stating:
until October, 23 workers will be reinstated,
and there will be further negotiations so the others get reinstated, too.
This under the conditions that we stop all our activities.
We did that. We calmed down and went home
and waited for the agreement to be implemented.
For us this was good. For the time the workers had got no money
we had established a resistance fund.
All warehouses and all comrades who acted in solidarty paid into a bank account,
the so-called resistance fund.
That was for support, so they could resist and live
until the time of the agreement expired and they got reinstated.
At the end of October nobody had been reinstated.
The word of the prefect, the director of LegaCoop who is now minister for employment,
the CTL and the trade union association:
none of them kept their word.
They thought that after some time
the workers get tired and go home.
But when the day the agreement expired we went back there!
We came back for a week we called "week of passion".
We came back with force, with all workers
and all who could go on strike, and we we blocked
the Granarolo warehouse for a whole day.
And we successfully blocked it!
There was a serious attack in the night, after 9 hours of blockade.
It was a serious attack because there were few of us.
They pushed the picket away from the entrance.
But next day we came back with twice as many people
and called for a regional strike.
There was another serious attack, and we called for a national strike.
So people from all warehouses we have in Italy came to this warehouse
for a blockade.
At this point, the police just watched.
Now they negotiate, because we attack not just Granarolo,
we attack the minister for employment, too,
who had also signed the contract and did not keep it.
And now we attack the party and the whole government, and say:
What kind of a government are you if you do not keep an agreement
you made with 51 workers.
If you don't have jobs for the 51 workers
How do you want to find solutions for 2.5 million unemployed in Italy then?
That means your promises are false.
And you are one of those who camp out in front of Granarolo?
Yes, I work in a different warehouse called Artoni in Bologna.
When this struggles started I said to the workers at Granarolo:
"I'm a Granarolo worker. I don't work for Artoni anymore. Your suffering is my suffering.
I share all your suffering." From that day on I was in front of Granarolo.
I have not worked for 10 months, only on days without actions.
We slept in the cars there, in a caravan.
When it was warm we could lie down outside,
but the camp was always under surveillance.
We close it whenever we want, and open it whenever we want.
They had expected that we give in after one or two months.
However, we mobilized all our energy.
I moved to Bologna.
Now I am banned from staying in Bologna.
The same in Piacenza.
By moving to the places where it is "hottest"
we potentiate our strength each time.
We use buses in various cities for the strike pickets.
They do not expect that we react with such determination.
They would have never expected that.
And now, after 9 months... He was not precise earlier:
After we had accepted their agreement in July
I wrote in the newspaper - and tell him again now -
that we hadn't thought that they would take up our aims.
But it was necessary to finish the pickets to get the "cassa integrazione" [redundancy pay].
We accepted the agreement, knowing that they will never keep their promises.
But we needed the redundancy payments.
We were lacking 800 euros for each worker.
51 persons on strike would otherwise have meant
that we had to pay 50,000 euros each month out of the resistance fund.
We were not strong enough to keep the resistance fund up.
We made an agreement, and it was them who would not keep their promises.
We did know that from the beginning
but it was them who did not keep their promises.
Meanwhile, we got money through the redundancy payments.
So we never ended to struggle, but it was about having a short break.
We took the financial relief in order to continue the struggle
that we could only carry out because we had established the resistance fund.
The money from redundancy payments came late,
but the workers and their families got it.
You can only struggle if you have something to eat.
If the troops have no supply of food during the battle
then they only shoot on the first day, but not on the second day anymore.
Strategically, that was of fundamental importance.
After 9 months we were faced with this situation.
We have inflicted an incredible damage on them.
We damaged their reputation. We hurt them on the international level.
With press releases. Whereever they were, we also went there.
They went to the stockmarket - we went in front of the stockmarket in Milano.
We made public what went on at Granarolo.
We started an Italy-wide boycott campaign against Granarolo.
We went to the supermarkets and attached stickers.
There was an exchange between all Social Centers.
At IKEA, we even went to Sweden.
That is our way of acting.
Communication is a vital element for a sector like this.
We did not do that ourselves because we are not capable of doing that, yet.
It was the comrades from the Social Centers who collaborated with us
and with whom we share direct solidarity in this struggle.
That was a vital element.
Another aspect that brought us advantages was
that the president of the Association of Cooperatives became minister for employment!
We started a campaign then:
If the minister for employment cannot solve a problem with 51 persons
how could he solve one for 2.5 million [unemployed]?
That was the music we played on the national level.
That was a delicate issue for him: "Wait a moment. Let us find a solution."
But the more we attack them, the more dangerous the signals we receive.
Also from the perspective of illegality.
The repression is carried out more by illegal mean
and is not as much carried out directly by the police.
The lawsuits start. struggles in the past are dug up.
They try to punish this kind of strike.
They don't punish the strike as such, because they want to be democratic on a formal level
and say that the allow the strike as such
but that it cannot be carried out in this way.
They started to say that we cannot go on with these strikes.
They came up with this "commission for state guarantees"
according to which these strikes, like ours at Granarolo, is not permitted.
Why? Because Granarolo is supplying hospitals and schools with milk
and this was declared a very important fact.
It is illegal to act against this since it is of highest national importance.
There are fines of 20,000 or 30,000 euros for a strike in this sector,
and the start to prosecute you for these things.
Granarolo demands compensation of 4.5 million euros from us
because due to us the company has economic problems.
But it is clear that this is not true. We are currently negotiating an agreement.
From the perspective of our struggle we forced Granarolo to its knees:
We finish the conflict about the reinstatement of the 51 sacked workers.
Granarolo would rather pay its way out, but we want the workers back in
because it is politically important that they continue to work there.
That has exemplary meaning for the whole sector and other proletarians
and inflicts enormous economic damage on the companies.
However, we cannot assume that this is the end.
They intensify the attacks on the personal level.
We have some militants whose cars were put on fire and the tires cut,
who were attacked by the mafia and the camorra.
Those are signalss, and when the mafia and the camorra give us such signals
that means that they still tolerate us.
If the mafia and camorra kill someone they do not send signals anymore.
As long as they send these signals it means: "Go away, otherwise something will break."
If you understand the message, good. If you don't understand it...
Take the example of DHL in Italy:
When this struggles began we had some problems.
When workers blocked a DHL warehouse in Milano, DHL closed it
and took the commodities to other warehouses, in Bologna, Naples, or elsewhere.
They close the warehouse in Milano temporarily until the workers get bored and go home.
But these workers did not wait until the gates were reopened
but drove to the warehouses in other cities and distributed flyers there.
They persuaded the DHL-workers in other cities to join the struggle.
And immediately, in less than one month, there were banners everywhere
and the whole camp was in struggle.
We began to develop this strategy
so that when the commodities where taken to Rome because of a strike in Milano
the workers in Rome also went on strike.
Now the workers in one warehouse do not strike on their own.
When something goes wrong in a warehouse in one city
all DHL-warehouses in the whole of Italy close down.
Therefore, DHL reacts immediately and pays these workers.
If they attack on, they attack all.
We did the same in various warehouses of TNT and GLS.
If they try to sack anyone anywhere, the whole DHL pays for that
because the people go on strike everywhere.
They want to dump the crisis on us - now we let them pay a pile of money
as soon as they try to steal a cent from us.
We have not only established unity within the DHL-warehouses and in the logistics sector,
all branches stand up for all others.
Whenever they attack some warehouse that belongs to us
they attack us all, and then we all go on strike and let them all pay for it.
Because the main responsibility lies with the government and capital.
We go straight to the highest level.
We do not ask first who is responsible here.
We close down all institutions and all warehouses and say:
"You can think about who is responsible
for the sacking of a worker in this or that warehouse."
Previously the bosses and foremen of the cooperatives were arrogant.
In some warehouses, like at TNT or STA, there were bosses
who went around with a stick in their hand.
They treated the people like cattle.
Who did not work well was beaten with the stick.
At STA in Bologna it was like that.
We saw that and filmed it before the struggle began.
At TNT it was the same. That is a breathtaking level of arrogancy.
Not to mention the wages:
The people work 16 hours per day and get 800, 900 euros.
That is really appalling.
When this struggle began we successfully fought for the compliance with
with the national collective agreement, what is required by law. And not only that.
While the work contracts in other branches are getting worse in the course of the crisis
we have improved the conditions in the logistics sector
and even reached improvements beyond the national collective agreement.
That is a question of power and connections we have in the warehouses.
Since when we have good connections in one warehouse, we can say:
"We do not want this foreman or that person. We want wages twice as high.
We want more holidays. We want this and that."
That depends on who is stronger.
If we are not that strong somewhere we are content with the national collective agreement.
But that is the limit! In that way we make no mistakes in legal terms.
We wait until management makes a mistake, and then we attack.
With legal means and beyond that.
The national standard in the logistics sector and the transportation of commodities stipulates
that a company has to guarantee a full-time worker with an unlimited contract
168 hours of work per month.
In case of a crisis and less work
it's the problem of the company not of the worker.
The company has to keep paying the worker the wage for a minimum of 168 hours.
But since nobody controls the wage slips of the cooperatives
they treat the people in the following way:
They call everyone and let them wait outside the warehouse.
Only if a truck with commodities comes and has to be unloaded they call them in:
"NOw you can come in and unload!"
Afterwards they send them outside again and the work is done.
That means they set a limit for you.
Some people wait outside the warehouse for 14 hours before getting work for 6 or 7 hours.
At STA it was always like that. That's how they treat the people there!
And in the time of crisis they have no chance to escape and work like that.
But during this struggle we have chased away the foremen
and won back the legal wages for the last 5 years.
Mony they have stolen from us for 5 years.
Now we work in dignity and with our heads up
and with wages three times higher than before.
In this struggles it was necessary to combine two aspects.
On one hand, that we don't just focus on our own company
as if it was an issue between you and your boss...
If the development of capitalism changes from one moment to the other
this has an immediate effect on the logistics sector. If there is growth then you get a share.
Is there a crisis then they kick you out.
So you life is closely connected to the development of capitalism.
You do not only exist within on particular company
because your fate is tightly connected with that of other proletarians.
For us it is important to connect to struggles
that workers have started here in Germany and France at Amazon
which is also part of the logistics sector.
We want to set up connections and try to organize general strikes
that bring the whole sector to a halt, like in Italy.
If we manage to do that, it would be a European strike...
At Amazon? – In the logistices sector and also at Amazon.
In Italy, Amazon is organized in a way that makes it extremely difficult to get inside.
We have a few contacts inside these warehouses.
But they are organized like military bases, and you cannot distribute leaflets in front.
Amazon is one of the imporant places we want to enter.
At the end of this international meeting of base unions
groups of different sectors where asked to come together
each sector separately.
From the logistics sector there were only people from Italy, so it was not really a meeting.
So there was a meeting of all groups
that represent one sector "alone".
We came to a conclusion that we have not presented at the assembly
but that we will publish in written form after the meeting:
There is a law that denies the workers in a warehouse the right
to go on strike in solidarity with another warehouse.
You are not allowed to strike in one sector in solidarity with another.
The law stipulates that.
However, we decided: the law is written by the bosses
and we can change it when we start struggling.
We decided to write a communiqué
or do something else, like a national boycott-day against this law
or a strike in the sectors where we have the power,
in order to topple that law.
Then we have all the possibilities to go on strike in solidarity with other sectors
and to unite the sectors.
Because capitalism is also united
and rests on the division between the peoples, sectors, and national states.
Capitals divides in order to reign.
It is a first step to unite these units, these sectors
and not to say anymore: "This sector has nothing to do with that one",
or: "Italy has nothing to do with Germany."
We have to break that and get rid of this law, as a first step.
Whenever we have established this unity we can also do other things together.
If there is an attack on logistics workers in Italy;
for instance in a warehouse of DHL or TNT
then those in Germany boycott that at Metro or another warehouse.
Of if there is an attack in France, for instance, in the health sector
then the logistics workers in Italy go in front of hospitals, boycott them
and draw attention to the case
in order to show that the sectors are not different,
and that the workers are united and support each other.
That way we can create connections between each other
becaue we are all part of the same class - the working class.
We are all workers who are fighting for more rights
and we are against capital and against exploitation.
And when we create unity between us in this way
it can constitute a real power that changes the world.