global di∫connections

by GABRIELLA ALBERTI On the 31st October, for the first time in 16 years, academics, administrative staff, cleaners and librarians of British Universities united and joined picket lines at 149 campuses in protest against pay cuts. The three unions who led the strike are the University College Union (UCU) representing academic staff, UNISON, for all clerical staff including administrative personnel …

In recent years the word poverty has re-entered European political jargon. The main doorway for this has been statistical data. This however does nothing more than reduce the quota of population that earns under a certain level of wage to a merely technical question. The construction of new indicators and new ways of studying and classifying impoverished subjects has changed …

by COORDINAMENTO MIGRANTI After the carnage which painted black the Mediterranean sea, we spoke about a political carnage. We want to repeat it, after the vulgar spectacle of a moralism which is not only impotent against racism, but also needs racism to exist. Many, both from the institutional left and from the movements, spoke about hypocrisy.  The hypocrisy of those who …

The following one is the English translation of the statement published by the Coordinamento Migranti after the death of hundreds migrants in the Sicily channel on October 3rd, 2013.  Hundreds migrants dead today add thousands migrants dead in the last twenty years. Besides numbers, these carnages are “normal” since the Europe of Schengen, celebrating the internal freedom of movement, homogenized …

by MANUELA ZECHNER – Precarity Office Vienna With the Precarity Office we open a monthly space for giving mutual advice about labour- and migration related issues and for discussing and developing self-organisation practices. As migrants and/or precarious workers we perceive the need for a space to get and give informal advice, meet and discuss, hear about our respective struggles and develop them further. We call …

We publish the appeal of a group of workers at the Maruti-Suzuki detained because of the struggles they organized one year ago (#1 #2), and the documentary movie «Count on us», which speak about their dreams, expectations and experiences through the story of Jitender and Rajesh, former workers of the Maruti-Suzuki. The appeal speaks for the workers still detained within …

We publish below an interview to two activists of the Polish union Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Workers’Initiative), that we realized on the occasion of the presentation of the documentary movie «Special Exploitation Zones» organized in Bologna, and another documentary concerning the living and working conditions of women in Wałbrzych. Poland is the only UE member State which established Special Economic Zones (SEZ), high-exploitation areas …

by CHRISTOS GIOVANOPOULOS – Dikaioma, network of precarious and unemployed workers, Athens *** Striking in the Troika era? That is apparently the wager of Olme, the union of workers of secondary schools in Greece which, going against government legislation that adds two hours more work a week for every teacher, announced a strike to be realized during the week of final …

de DAVID GARCÍA ARISTEGUI – Solidaridad Obrera España ha tenido, por lo tanto, una revolución política en lugar de una revolución social que le hubiera convenido mucho más Gerald Brennan hablando de los antecedentes de la Guerra Civil española, en su libro El laberinto español (1943).   Introducción: después de la huelga general En el anterior texto para ∫connessioni precarie …

by HAGEN KOPP – Kein Mensch ist Illegal, Hanau, with Activists from Afrique-Europe-Interact and Welcome to Europe Intro 1 This fragmentary diary was written in late January, before the assassination of the leader of the left opposition Chokri Belaïd on February 6th 2013 in Tunis, and the general strike and mass protests that followed in many cities around the country. The …