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Support Italian Fed-Ex & Amazon Workers General Strike & Workers Unite On Red October
2021-10-11 23:00 - 2021-10-12 00:00 UTC | San Francisco Italian Consulate 2590 Webster St. San Francisco
On 10/20 Workers Of The World UNITE!

Our Red October: Stop Temp, Contract, GIG Slave Labor & Union Busting Around The World

This October workers are on the march around the world.

On October 11 there will be a general strike of workers at Fed-Ex, Amazon and other logistiics companies in Italy by S.I. Cobus. These workers who are 85% immigrant have faced union
busting and even the murder of a union activist by the bosses.
On October 20th, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has called for a general strike to:
• Eradicate precarious work & Reform the labor law to guarantee fundamental trade union rights for all!
• For a Just Transition & Moratorium on dismissals/government responsibility to secure jobs!
• Strengthen public services & social protection!
The government has also imprisoned the president of the KCTU Yang Kyung-soo after he led a march of 8,000 workers in Seoul for health and safety and temporary workers.
On October 27th Mineworkers Union of Namibia Rossiing Uranium miner unoin branch leaders were fired by the state owned Chinese
National Nuclear Corporation and workers at the mine and other companies are facing union busting and being forced into contract labor which was mandatory duriing the time that the apartheid regime ran Namibia.The government has also shut off the water and power to their lawyer Hewat Beukes who also represents other miners, trade unionists and the Fisherman United Of Namibia
Bosses are imposing slave labor conditions and these are what workers face around the world. We support all strikes and struggles in every country and want to bring them together October
including US UMWA miners in Alabama, striking UBC Carpenters in Seattle.
This month long series of actions will include workers in those countries where similar struggles are going on so we can unite all workers
around the world.
Take action a) send messages of solidarity b) picket on these dates at all consulates and embassies around the world and also c) picket companies like
Amazon, Fed-ex, Uber and others that are forcing us into cheap labour around the world.

In the Bay Area
October 11, 2021 4:30 PM
San Francisco Italian Consulate
2590 Webster St.
San Francisco

October 20, 2021 12 Noon PM
Korean Consulate
3500 Clay St.
San Francisco

October 27, 2021
Chinese Consulate
1450 Laguna St
4:00 PM

An Injury To One Is An Injury To All

Initiated by

S.I. Cobus Italy
http://sicobas.org
MUN Rossing Branch Dismissed Union Leaders
https://ilscnamibia.wordpress.com
Workers International Network
https://www.onthebrink.online
Workers International
http://workersinternational.info
United Front Committee For A Labor Party UFCLP
https://www.facebook.com/masslaborpartyusa/
Higher Education Action Team HEAT
https://www.ccsfheat.org

Send video and statements to
labormedia1@gmail.com
Post Video on
https://www.facebook.com/InternationalLaborMediaNetwork

HOUSE ARRESTS OF ITALIAN SI CORBUS FEDEX WORKERS
https://en.labournet.tv/house-arrests-lifted
italienisch mit dt. ut | 13 min | 2021 | hits: 84
On March 26, 2021, the SI Cobas coordinators for Piacenza, Carlo and Arafat, were released from their 14 days long house arrests. They were part of a massive operation against the italian base union, with house searches, deplacements, police brutality against strike pickets, one 9-months prision sentence for a coordinator in Bologna.
One of the freshly released, Carlo Pallavicini, holds an improvised speach and points out a connection between the successful struggles of the workers organized in SI Cobas and the current wave of repression:

"At month's end, at the turnstile, the mafia handed out 800 Euros in cash! Now, with us, there are regular contracts!"

Currently, the unions fight for the renewal of the National Collective Agreement for the logistics industry that ran out in 2019.
In addition, TNT-Fedex seems to want to close down the warehouse in Piacenza to get rid of the militant workforce.

Tnt/FedEx attack workers in Italy and SI Cobas, their union call for solidarity Workers Hold Assemblies in Warehouses in 2020-We Will Not Be Slaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO1ntAsJ59U&t=347s

http://sicobas.org/2020/05/14/internationalism-tnt-fedex-attack-workers-in-italy-and-si-cobas-their-union-call-for-solidarity/

Maggio 14, 20200

TNT/FEDEX ATTACKS WORKERS IN ITALY AND SI COBAS, THEIR UNION

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

Workers are on strike at most of the main TNT/FEDEX warehouses in Italy, following the dismissal of 66 temporary workers -“supplied” by the Adecco temp agency – who have been working at the Peschiera Borromeo warehouse
(near Milan) for 5 years, and whom TNT/FEDEX had agreed to hire as permanent staff starting May 1, 2020.

As in other warehouses across Italy, workers organised with the SI Cobas union responded to the danger caused by the pandemic by abstaining from work until safe working conditions were implemented, and on April 30-May 1 they took part to a national strike against the governmental policy that set strict regulations on individuals’ mobility, while setting loose regulations for workplace safety, with no penalties for non-complying companies.

Thousands of companies were allowed to re-open on the basis of a self-statement that they were “essential”. In industrial areas the outbreak has been much larger than in the rest of the country, with many casualties among factory and warehouse workers, besides healthcare workers.

On MayDay also the 66 temps working at the Peschiera Borromeo warehouse joined the strike of permanent TNT/FEDEX workers.

The company responded saying it did not need any more the labour of the 66 workers because of the coronavirus crisis, and would not comply with the agreement. The 66 workers were therefore left jobless.

All the other permanent workers of TNT/FEDEX Peschiera Borromeo, starting Sunday night, May 2nd, struck in solidarity with the 66 fellow workers, with whom they have been sharing work for 5 years, and occupied the warehouse.

Other warehouses struck in their support, and for furloughed workers to be paid full pay in advance, without waiting for the social security institute (INPS) check and to obtain a workplace safety agreement through the union to reduce the risks of contamination from Covid-19, as signed with several other companies.

There was an easy solution to the labor dispute: hiring the 66 workers as agreed, and putting part of the exceeding personnel in “Cassa Integrazione”, i.e. on paid leave – paid by INPS, according to the governmental provisions to face
the crisis followed to the pandemic.

But the response of the company was a declaration of war on the workers and their union. FedEx, the U.S. parent company of TNT, took over the management of the dispute, with the purpose to destroy the militant union SI Cobas.

FedEx must have some special relationship with the Italian government, because the Interior Ministry sent 180 policemen and Carabinieri to clear the Peschiera Borromeo warehouse from the strikers [http://sicobas.org/2020/05/05/italia-fedex-tnt-le-forze-dellordine-sgomberano-i-lavoratori-in-sciopero-ecco-la-fase-2-tra-licenziamenti-e-repressione/].

Workers at most TNT/FEDEX warehouses in Italy, including Turin, Brescia, Piacenza, Bologna, Rome and Naples have gone on strike last week, paralizing most TNT/FEDEX activity in the whole country, according to the SI Cobas motto: “Toccano uno, toccano tutti”(“An injury to one is an injury to all”), but the U.S. FedEx bosses prefer to lose millions than come to an agreement with SI Cobas.

The company also aims at using the struggle as a pretext to carry out a drastic restructuring, with closure of less profitable businesses and warehouses.

Workers have gone back to work on Monday, May 11 to prevent an imminent company lockout, but they are not going to abandon the struggle.

We call TNT/FEDEX and FedEx workers in all countries for solidarity actions with the struggle of TNT/FEDEX workers in Italy against dismissals, and against FedEx union-bashing.

S.I. Cobas

Italy Fight Fedex Piacenza, extending the struggle against anti-worker repression

internaz.sicobas@gmail.com

On Wednesday 10 March, at 6am, 21 police squads raided the homes of 21 FedEx workers and SI Cobas union organisers. They searched their homes, seized mobile phones, computers and clothing. They placed two SI Cobas organisers under house arrest, notified 5 workers of a ban from the municipality of Piacenza and 6 (immigrant) workers of the start of the procedure to revoke their residence permits. The charges are: private violence, aggravated personal injuries, resistance to public officials, and more. The accused are in total 29. They also imposed fines amounting to 13,200 euro for violating anti-covid regulations (curfew, social distancing).

An operation of this magnitude, organised with the direct participation of the Ministry of the Interior, and measures of this gravity by the judiciary have so far only been seen for two types of crime: mafia association and (in other times) terrorism. Now they are being applied to workers and trade union organisers guilty of... trade union struggle, defence of strike action.

What are these workers and organisers guilty of? Of having defended, on the night of February 1st, their 13-day strike at the FedEx warehouse in Piacenza, against the attack on the picket line conducted by nearly a hundred policemen with tear gas canisters thrown at workers sitting on the ground, and batons. They are guilty of having immediately re-established the picket line with the support of workers from other warehouses; guilty of having obtained through their struggle, in the subsequent negotiations at the Prefecture, all their wage demands, and reassurance of employment at the FedEx hub in Piacenza after FedEx had announced 6,300 redundancies Europe-wide and dismissed 667 workers in Liège (Belgium). SI Cobas FedEx workers in Italy have shared solidarity with Fedex Belgian workers.

The videos of that resistance, the agreement won, gave courage to thousands of workers, increasing their determination to fight.

The government is planning to unblock redundancies after June. In view of the tens of thousands of workers who will be forced to fight to defend their jobs, it could not allow the example of the Fedex workers in Piacenza to mark the resumption of the class struggle. It decided to hit the workers who dared to resist the police aggression in order to terrorize everyone. Hence the house arrest of two organisers. Hence the ban on residence, which means having to leave your home, look for makeshift accommodation, not being allowed to go to work, and the risk of losing both your salary and your job. And this is the reason for the threat of withdrawing the residence permit, which would mean the possibility of expulsion from Italy, together with one's family, for those who have been living here for 10-20 years, with children born here... The last one was the Security Decree issued by the Lega-5Stars government, maintained by the government with the Democratic Party, and now applied by the Draghi government, which includes almost all parties from the right to the left.This is not an isolated episode, but a sign of the government's desire to nip in the bud workers' protests, terrorise workers fighting to defend their conditions, and hit the organisers of SI Cobas, the union that more than any other in recent years has held high the banner of class struggle.

It is no coincidence that on the same day as the searches in Piacenza, in Prato (near Florence) a riot police unit attacked and beat up a picket line of striking Pakistani workers at the Texprint textile factory, who for two months have been fighting against a slave-like working week of 12 hours for 7 days (84 hours!). That same morning, the newspapers headlined the banning of the

(Chinese) owners of Texprint from participating in public tenders, due to their involvement in mafia affairs. The police attacking enslaved workers who revolt against a mafia boss: we are not surprised because it has happened many times, but the timing is not accidental. And this happens while in Modena 87 workers and supporters of the Alcar1 (meat processing) struggle in 2016 (also led by SI Cobas) are being tried, also guilty of resisting tear gas fired at eye level and opposing their bodies to batons.

The Piacenza Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that this was not a trade union dispute - the only real trade unions would be the official ones, which no longer make real strikes - and that therefore forms of struggle such as strike pickets are a crime. This is the continuation of a political offensive against strikes, which aims to give only the official unions the right to call strikes.

The response to this escalation of repression was the immediate one-day strike at FedEx group nationally and for all workers in the province of Piacenza, and two hours in other workplaces; and most meaningful, the large demonstration held in Piacenza on Saturday 13, with the combative participation of SI Cobas workers, but also of many supporters, many young people, who despite the Covid-19 wanted to stand against repression.

FedEx, emboldened by the state repression against SI Cobas workers, has emptied its Piacenza hub since March 15, shifting hundreds of thousands packages to other warehouses and even to competitors the packages: this amounts to a lockout, which is forbidden under Italian law. Workers in many warehouses are refusing to handle goods shifted from Piacenza.

If the government's anti-worker offensive, by means of the police and the judiciary, instead of terrorising workers, especially immigrant workers, has the effect of widening the front of the struggle to other sectors and organisations, the repression will prove to be a boomerang as it happened with the attempt by the police and the Modena Public Prosecutor's Office to incriminate the national SI Cobas coordinator, Aldo Milani, on charges that in court turned out to be fabricated.

SI Cobas is one of the promoters of an Anti-capitalist Action Pact and the Assembly of Combative Workers to carry out initiatives of struggle on a common platform, beyond trade union affiliations. On 17 April the Action Pact will hold a conference on the pandemic, and on experiences of struggle and initiatives to be taken from a working class point of view. For May Day, demonstrations will be organised in several cities and an international conference is planned for May 2, of organisations sharing the need to work for the international union of workers in their struggle against capital. The strength of workers is in their union, beyond factory gates, beyond their trade and their industry, beyond borders.

SI Cobas - Italy

On Wednesday 10 March, at 6am, 21 police squads raided the homes of 21 FedEx workers and SI Cobas union organisers. They searched their homes, seized mobile phones, computers and clothing. They placed two SI Cobas organisers under house arrest, notified 5 workers of a ban from the municipality of Piacenza and 6 (immigrant) workers of the start of the procedure to revoke their residence permits. The charges are: private violence, aggravated personal injuries, resistance to public officials, and more. The accused are in total 29. They also imposed fines amounting to 13,200 euro for violating anti-covid regulations (curfew, social distancing).

An operation of this magnitude, organised with the direct participation of the Ministry of the Interior, and measures of this gravity by the judiciary have so far only been seen for two types of crime: mafia association and (in other times) terrorism. Now they are being applied to workers and trade union organisers guilty of... trade union struggle, defence of strike action.

What are these workers and organisers guilty of? Of having defended, on the night of February 1st, their 13-day strike at the FedEx warehouse in Piacenza, against the attack on the picket line conducted by nearly a hundred policemen with tear gas canisters thrown at workers sitting on the ground, and batons. They are guilty of having immediately re-established the picket line with the support of workers from other warehouses; guilty of having obtained through their struggle, in the subsequent negotiations at the Prefecture, all their wage demands, and reassurance of employment at the FedEx hub in Piacenza after FedEx had announced 6,300 redundancies Europe-wide and dismissed 667 workers in Liège (Belgium). SI Cobas FedEx workers in Italy have shared solidarity with Fedex Belgian workers.

The videos of that resistance, the agreement won, gave courage to thousands of workers, increasing their determination to fight.

The government is planning to unblock redundancies after June. In view of the tens of thousands of workers who will be forced to fight to defend their jobs, it could not allow the example of the Fedex workers in Piacenza to mark the resumption of the class struggle. It decided to hit the workers who dared to resist the police aggression in order to terrorize everyone. Hence the house arrest of two organisers. Hence the ban on residence, which means having to leave your home, look for makeshift accommodation, not being allowed to go to work, and the risk of losing both your salary and your job. And this is the reason for the threat of withdrawing the residence permit, which would mean the possibility of expulsion from Italy, together with one's family, for those who have been living here for 10-20 years, with children born here... The last one was the Security Decree issued by the Lega-5Stars government, maintained by the government with the Democratic Party, and now applied by the Draghi government, which includes almost all parties from the right to the left.This is not an isolated episode, but a sign of the government's desire to nip in the bud workers' protests, terrorise workers fighting to defend their conditions, and hit the organisers of SI Cobas, the union that more than any other in recent years has held high the banner of class struggle.

It is no coincidence that on the same day as the searches in Piacenza, in Prato (near Florence) a riot police unit attacked and beat up a picket line of striking Pakistani workers at the Texprint textile factory, who for two months have been fighting against a slave-like working week of 12 hours for 7 days (84 hours!). That same morning, the newspapers headlined the banning of the

(Chinese) owners of Texprint from participating in public tenders, due to their involvement in mafia affairs. The police attacking enslaved workers who revolt against a mafia boss: we are not surprised because it has happened many times, but the timing is not accidental. And this happens while in Modena 87 workers and supporters of the Alcar1 (meat processing) struggle in 2016 (also led by SI Cobas) are being tried, also guilty of resisting tear gas fired at eye level and opposing their bodies to batons.

The Piacenza Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that this was not a trade union dispute - the only real trade unions would be the official ones, which no longer make real strikes - and that therefore forms of struggle such as strike pickets are a crime. This is the continuation of a political offensive against strikes, which aims to give only the official unions the right to call strikes.

The response to this escalation of repression was the immediate one-day strike at FedEx group nationally and for all workers in the province of Piacenza, and two hours in other workplaces; and most meaningful, the large demonstration held in Piacenza on Saturday 13, with the combative participation of SI Cobas workers, but also of many supporters, many young people, who despite the Covid-19 wanted to stand against repression.

FedEx, emboldened by the state repression against SI Cobas workers, has emptied its Piacenza hub since March 15, shifting hundreds of thousands packages to other warehouses and even to competitors the packages: this amounts to a lockout, which is forbidden under Italian law. Workers in many warehouses are refusing to handle goods shifted from Piacenza.

If the government's anti-worker offensive, by means of the police and the judiciary, instead of terrorising workers, especially immigrant workers, has the effect of widening the front of the struggle to other sectors and organisations, the repression will prove to be a boomerang as it happened with the attempt by the police and the Modena Public Prosecutor's Office to incriminate the national SI Cobas coordinator, Aldo Milani, on charges that in court turned out to be fabricated.

SI Cobas is one of the promoters of an Anti-capitalist Action Pact and the Assembly of Combative Workers to carry out initiatives of struggle on a common platform, beyond trade union affiliations. On 17 April the Action Pact will hold a conference on the pandemic, and on experiences of struggle and initiatives to be taken from a working class point of view. For May Day, demonstrations will be organised in several cities and an international conference is planned for May 2, of organisations sharing the need to work for the international union of workers in their struggle against capital. The strength of workers is in their union, beyond factory gates, beyond their trade and their industry, beyond borders.

SI Cobas - Italy

http://sicobas.org

"We're not criminals” Italian Si Corbus Worker Speaks Out

https://en.labournet.tv/were-not-criminals
italian with engl. subs, | 7 min | 2021

Ruben, a SI Cobas union activist, talks about repression against workers and union officials in Piacenza in March 2021.

The attacks follow successful striks in the logistics industry that resulted in compliance of national sector-level agreements and improvement agreements and in the case of TNT-Fedex even terminations were repelled. Most of the time these struggles are lead to put into practice what's already law, e.g. sector-level wages, subsequently guaranteed working hours, correct payrolls. Before SI Cobas appeared approximately 10 years ago illegal conditions, especially for the majoritarian migrant workers in the Italian logistics sector but also in other sector, were the norm.

In addition to the state's oppression that Ruben describes in this interview, on 23 March 2021 a court sentenced the regional SI Cobas coordinator from Bologna, Simon Carpeggiani, to nine months in prison because he joined a picket in Ferrara in 2014. The picket was repeatedly attacked by fascists and the Lega Nord party at that time.

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/10/04/18845390.php
