South London

The IKEA store in the city of Brescia sacked 7 store employees in September 2008 refusing to renew their contract with them. The company believed that employees should pay for the crisis. These people had worked at IKEA for many years, working up to 200 hours per month for as little as 1000 Euros. So the workers decided to protest against this sacking and engaged in picketing at the IKEA store. They have were an established group of workers Senzatemponedenaro and were willing to fight a stubborn struggle. They also joined the USI, the Italian section of the International Workers Association. They conducted continous weekend pickets at IKEA with many people deciding to boycott the store.

On December 17, the labour court ruled to reinstate Belmadani Azzedine with all the other employees, back to work. He also will receive compensation. Unionists from the USI are confident that everyone who wants to get reinstated will be.

South London Solidarity Federation Supports the Tube Cleaners. An article about the Tube cleaners Strike and action reports. July 4th, 2008 taken from LibCom.org

Tube cleaners’ union RMT has demanded an end to “appalling intimidation“ of members involved in a 48-hour strike for a living wage on, one on July 1st-3rd. Tube cleaners also engaged in a 24-hour strike on June 25th-26th.

The union is gathering evidence that cleaners have been bullied, harassed and threatened with the sack and with illegal punitive deductions from their wages if they take strike action.

“Reports coming in from picket lines over the last 36 hours indicate that the employers are so desperate that they are resorting to gangster-style intimidation and using the worst sort of fear tactics to stop more people joining the strike, “ RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

Solidarity with sacked IKEA workers in Brescia, Italy.
 
On 1st September, whilst workers were being transferred between one work agency to another, 7 workers were sacked, even though they had been assured they would be absorbed into the new agency.

These general service workers had been working at IKEA for several years, had been lowly paid at €5 per hour and working up to 200 hours per month and had been working in unsafe working conditions in the underground car park with no exhaust fans. Workers even had to purchase their own safety clothing.

It is obvious that IKEA had no respect for the workers health and preferred to ignore health and safety rules in order to maximise profit. With decreasing sales, IKEA chose to downsize their workforce and weaken the work conditions of the workers, with restaurant and bar staff within the complex now having to perform the duties of the sacked carpark workers.

A top London restaurant paid only £1.50 an hour to a kitchen porter.

Cesare Copeta, a member of the Solidarity Federation's South London local, was employed by The Food Room, owners of The French Table restaurant in Surrey and the Tom Ilic restaurant in Battersea, which is currently listed in Time Out's Top 50 London restaurants.

He was employed as a kitchen porter at the Tom Ilic restaurant and had applied for the job through an advertisement in the Department of Work and Pension's Jobcentre Plus database.

He worked 50 hours over a 2 week shift, but was then paid only £75. Having been paid only £1.50 per hour, he walked out of the job in disgust.

On 24th of April, our comrade Mónica, a barista at the multinational Starbucks, was fired.

The district manager himself, Tomas Pinto, recognized the unfairness of the dismissal, and declared that her "profile was not suitable for what they were looking for". The surprising thing is that he drew that conclusion after she had been working for the company for a year and a half.

The fact is that Mónica was starting to organize the CNT Union Section at the company. She did not notify her union membership and her position of Delegate of the Union Section, but during all her time in the company she fought for her rights and dignity as a worker. For example, during the Holy Week she refused to double her working shift because the shop manager did not tell her if it was going to be paid overtime.

South London SolFed have involved with this campaign to reinstate five sacked Columbian cleaners.

More than forty people demonstrated outside the Institute of Engineering and Technology in Savoy Place on Wednesday 22nd,  in support of Colombian cleaners unfairly dismissed by the cleaning company Amey. There was a simultaneous demonstration in Bristol outside Amey’s offices there. 

One of the sacked cleaners and a former trade unionist in Colombia, Julio Mayor, said:

‘We were sacked for trying to communicate with the other staff at the National Physical Laboratory about Amey’s violation of the employment rights of cleaners there. We are protesting here to publicly request the National Physical Laboratory to take action against Amey to stop victimising cleaners.’