IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Waar: Vondelbunker, Voldelpark 8, Amsterdam, Netherlands (GPS lat: 52.360854 lon: 4.876987)
Wanneer: 14/07/2012 - 13:57

An evening of debate on new activist movements, traditional workers organizations, creation of jobs and the end of unlimited exploitation of resources. Case study: Steelworkers and miners strikes in Greece and Spain.

https://www.facebook.com/events/175699419228762/

Where: Vondelbunker, Amsterdam
When: 14th of July, Saturday, from 18'00 to 21'00

In October 2011, Greek Steelworks SA cut down workers' salaries by 40%, reduced working hours to 5 hours a day, and dismissed many of their employees. 400 workers responded by holding a strike, demanding a reversal of the lay offs, and restoration of their full salaries.

A few months later, Spanish miners undertook an indefinite strike in answer to the 63% budget cuts in subsidies to the mining sector. The cuts will effectively terminate the coal mining industry in Spain, putting between 8.000 and 12.000 jobs at risk, and paralysing the local economy in the mining regions.

The mountains and villages of these regions have since been turned into a battlefield between citizens and police. Miners are walking a “Black March” to Madrid, where they will arrive on the 11th of July, and stay until a solution is found to their plight.

The 15M movement has shown full support for the miners' struggle, acknowledging it as the voice of a united working class at the heart of industrial production, standing up against the aggressive neoliberal austerity measures implemented by a corporate and political elite. There is, however, an urgent need to reflect on the precarious position of these workers in relation to the future of the coal mining industry in Spain, that takes into account the fundamental dilemmas between growth and de-growth policies, i.e. between the necessity to create jobs, sustainability and the protection of the environment.

Take the Square-Zuid Holland and REinFORM invites activists, occupiers, unionists, workers and everyone interested to join us in support of the “Black Marches”. In the event “The less I work, the more I do”, we will share information about the recent miners' protests, reflect on the relation between labour and the exploitation of natural resources, and discuss how a common front may be realised between traditional workers' organisations and the new activist movements.

PROGRAM:

-Introduction: Overview of the miners struggle in Spain

-Skype conversation with the support group of the Black Marches in Madrid

-Skype conversation with Theodoros Michalakopoulos, assistant professor of Minining and Metallurgical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens

-Future scenario of labor relations, by Sol Trumbo. Dilemmas between the necessity to create jobs due to the crisis and how this same policies (based on production and growth) are usually unsustainable in the long run and against the protection of the environment

-Debate

CONTACT:
ttszuidholland@gmail.com