As you probably know by now, the strike at Jeremias by our Polish comrades of IP was a complete success. If you haven’t heard about their struggle, we informed about it here and here, and you can find more information about the outcome in their local website (in Polish) here. Needless to say, ICL and its sections supported the strike from the very first moment and we are very happy that it’s been successful.
In a sense, this is also a success of international solidarity, and it is now time to learn a few lessons from the way the struggle was conducted. Indeed, in ICL we learn as much from the success of our sections as we do from our failures, and we share this knowledge among all our members, so that everyone can benefit from being part of the International.
Firstly, on a national level, we really like the reflection of the local branch of the IP about the weakness of the Polish state, when it comes to enforce its own labour legislation (in the link above). However, that is not exclusive to Poland. Same as the bosses never make concessions out of the goodness of their hearts, but we have to wrestle any demands from them, the politicians and the State are unable (or unwilling) to force companies to respect the labour legislation. It is up to the workers, again, to compel their companies to abide by the rules. That’s another reason why we need a stronger workers’ organisation instead of parliamentarian adventures.
Secondly, the strike has shown the many forms that international solidarity can take and the importance of belonging to a well-structured International. This is obviously very important to us. At ICL, we always try to find ways to effectively support our comrades from other regions in their labour struggles. Their success is our own.
Of course, we shared the information about the Jeremias struggle, answered to IP’s request for support and contributed to their fundraiser. Even now, after the strike itself has ended, the work goes on, to replenish their depleted coffers, etc. That goes without saying. But we also explored other ways of showing solidarity and supporting the strike, which ultimately turned out to be very successful.
The Jeremias factory in Poland is owned by a German company and they produce pieces and parts for a factory in Germany. Our comrades from FAU drove a couple of times to the village where this plant is located and distributed thousands of leaflets to the workers there and in the village (considering that it only has 3,600 inhabitants, it is safe to assume that the impact was quite large). Let’s say that the bosses didn´t like this at all… Of course, we cannot know the extent to which this played a role in the outcome. Surely it pales in comparison to the gigantic effort made by our Polish comrades, who wore the brunt of the struggle. But it is not unreasonable to think that bosses in Germany were concerned about this development, that rendered ineffective the wall of silence that they tried to build around the strike. At the very least, FAU’s leaflets went against the lies that the company was peddling among the workforce in Germany. A statement and more information can be found here (in German).
I don’t know about you, but to us it seems like international solidarity on the go! Thank you to our Polish and German sections for this great example of solidarity and comradeship.
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