“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has acknowledged shocking details about the violence of Canada’s near past. Deepening poverty and inequality are a scar on the country’s present. And Canada’s record on climate change is a crime against humanity’s future.” —The Leap Manifesto
The Roma Business 160 years since the end of Roma slavery in Romania
9 April 2016, byOn 20 February Romania celebrated 160 years since the official abolition of Roma slavery. In a typical Romanian way the event was, of course, surrounded by scandals and controversy. They are revealing insofar as they function as a symptom for the way Romanian society functions and for the very status of the Roma population.
March 31: a new step towards a general mobilization against the labour law
7 April 2016, byThe national day of strikes and demonstrations on March 31 was unquestionably a success. The Inter-union Coordination (CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires, UNEF, UNL et FIDL) announced over a million demonstrators in 260 cities. On March 9, the figure announced was 450,000 in 170 cities.
“And We Go Willingly, Like a Lamb to the Slaughter”: Migrant Labor in the EU
6 April 2016Bogdan Droma worked in Berlin for three months, between August and October 2014, building the famous Mall of Berlin. As a result of weeks of work going unpaid, as well as of various forms of abusive treatment, he protested together with other workers between November 2014 and February 2015 on an almost daily basis, turning the popular designation of the mall into the Mall of Shame. The case of the Mall of Berlin workers is not an isolated one. Thus [we] wanted, together with Bogdan, to start a conversation regarding non-declared or off the books work as performed by immigrants in the West.
The Brussels Police Commissioner must be dismissed
3 April 2016, byThe static vigil against fascism and Islamophobia and for the victims of the terrorist attacks that was planned to be held in front of the Stock Exchange building (the ’Bourse’) in Brussels on Saturday 2nd April was severely disrupted by the police. Nearly a hundred people were arrested and taken to the police barracks in Etterbeek, a Southern suburb of Brussels. Customers sitting on the terrace of a neighbouring cafe, and even people inside the café, were also arrested.
Migration: break the cycle of death, restore dignity and defend freedom of movement
1 April 2016, byThis report was made to the February/March 2016 meeting of the International Committee of the Fourth International. The list of demands with which it ends were incorporated into the statement adopted at that meeting available here Internationalism from below against Fortress Europe.