[fse-esf] cleaners campaign in the netherlands

[Karine Gantin]

-------- Message original --------
Sujet: 	[NextGenderation] cleaners campaign in the netherlands
Date: 	Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:24:04 +0100
De: 	Sabrina Marchetti <sabrina.marchetti at let.uu.nl>
Pour :: 	Nextgenderation <nextgenderation at nextgenderation.net>



hi all
I don't know if detailed information about this campaign already circulated
in the list.
Some poeple might know Valery from Justic for Janitors, who is now in the
Netherlands and wrote the following appeal.
Anu support is welcom.
You can contact the organizers
at email: steundeschoonmakers at gmail.com .

ciao,sabrina

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cleaners campaign in the netherlands.

workers are organizing in 4 cities: the hague, utrecht, maastricht and
amsterdam (specifically at schiphol airport).  for the first time workers
in each city are forming city-wide committees and coordinating with each
other. most of the workers are migrants from morocco, turkey, suriname
(hindu and criolle), and others. in maastricht they are mainly dutch
working poor.

we will be fighting against the largest and most abusive cleaning company
in the netherlands CSU. CSU cleans major dutch government agencies
(ministries) in the hague, the train stations, major universities (TU Delf,
Utrecht U.) the amsterdam police stations and various multi-nationals
including Phillips. CSU has been systematically violating workers labour
rights by threatening and repressing our organizing efforts.

we are fighting for a living wage, full time work and stronger organizing
rights.  the goal of the campaign however is to build sustainable worker
structures able to fight, strong community support in the form of an
on-going solidarity network that could support future labor struggles in
retail, agriculture and domestic work.  most importantly our goal is to
raise migrant and precarious workers rights struggles in the netherlands
where xenophobia and neoliberal labour transformations are on the increase.


we are organizing support from the social movement, migrant communities,
religious leaders, artists, students, etc.  we are collaborating directly
with the flexmen in amstedam and Merijke Bijl in the hague where she has
been involved for a long time in the struggles of undocumented
migrants. we are
planning to build direct relationships with the agricultural and domestic
worker organizations.

our time-line

the campaign will go public on nov. 17th this year with a big public kick
off event where workers from all the cities and supporters will come
together (you are all invited to come!)

from nov. 17th on we will start small to medium coordinated actions in each
city against CSU clients: delegations, leafletings, picket lines, etc.

in mid-december we want to do a large action bringing workers and
supporters
to one city, and further christmas-related smaller actions (in schiphol for
example).

after christmas break we will re-engage with small to medium actions from
january on key targets to begin escalation.

we are planning to compress in february and bring things to a boiling point
and settlement in march.

we will not be able to strike nationally but we might do key small strikes
with swarming actions on key corporate or government targets.

international solidarity

it would be great to organize a forum/working meeting with some european
allies in amsterdam around key time(s) to impulse the campaign and discuss
further issues of precarity & organizing (just a thought)

the workers would benefit very much if we are able coordinate international
actions against multi-nationals or dutch embassies at some point in
december or next year - we will try to outreach to the groups and union
allies that helped us on the houston janitor campaign (berlin, milan,
london, etc.) but it would be great to imagine how to expand the support.

en solidarity, valery


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