Thursday Aug 4th 2005
LIVERPOOL

Five Polish former agency workers organised a picket of TESCO in Liverpool town centre in solidarity with the demands of the TESCO Temps Defence Committee. The five, all members of the Transport and General Workers Union painted T-Shirts, banners and Placards in Polish with the following statements:

The largest banner read: ‘WE CAN CHANGE THIS SITUATION. WE’RE FIGHTING FOR IMPROVEMENT NOW! LETS NOT ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE EXPLOITED BY EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES’.

Another stated: ‘THE 1000 BOX NORM MUST BE ABOLISHED’

A placard also read: ‘WE’RE PROUD TO BELONG TO THE TGWU’

They also handed out the Irish workers’ leaflet to passers by.

The five worker activists had had their own experience of exploitation, extortion, intimidation and abuse at the hand of an unscrupulous employment agency which was mainly managed and staffed by Polish bosses.

Many passers-by stopped to talk to the picketers and some boycotted RESCO that day, due to the visual and vocal picket. Protestors chanted ‘BOYCOTT TESCOS! NO WORKER EXPLOITATION’.

Many local Polish residents also stopped to talk to the protestors, exchanging similar stories and experiences of employment agency corruption and exploitation. Some joined the picket, congratulating them and the Polish workers’ in Dublin’s stand and courage. One of the protestors said, ‘We’re here in solidarity with all Polish workers in the UK being exploited by agencies, whether British or Polish managed, because we’ve been through what they’ve been through. We want to stand up to the agencies and big business which make big money out of us like TESCOs and ASDA and say We’ve had Enough of this exploitation’.

Local radio and community newspaper journalists also stopped by and took photos and interviewed the protestors.

The TGWU is currently working with Polish migrant workers in the UK to organise and fight back against exploitative gangmaster agencies and to improve working conditions and wages. An honest days pay for an honest days work. See press release from TGWU site:


 http://www.tgwu.org.uk/Templates/System/Other.asp?NodeID=91843

T&G Polish members join nationwide Tesco protest
3 Aug 2005

Polish members of the Transport and General Workers' Union will be joining solidarity protests outside Tescos stores tomorrow in support of agency workers employed at Tesco's distribution centre in Dublin, who have been raising issues of pressures on agency workers, many of whom are Polish. Tomorrow there will be a picket at Tesco on Baggot Street (near Stephens Green) at 6pm andsolidarity protests will take place at the same time at Tesco Metro, St Johns Shopping Centre, Liverpool City Centre; and in London, Glasgow and Oxford.

The workers have been protesting over the different pay rates for agency workers (e350 per week compared to e500 per week for contracted staff), and the continuous raising of daily production targets for picking boxes in the Tesco warehouse, which rose from 750 to 800, to 900 and then 1,000. The Irish trade union SIPTU is taking up the issues of differentials between agency and other staff.

Ewa Jasiewicz, T&G Organiser, said:

"Polish workers want to express their solidarity with agency workers in who are receiving different rates of pay. The agency workers have pressures on them and deserve the same as other workers. Workers are organizing together to end exploitation, including solidarity between migrant and domestic workers."

Solidarity protests will also take place at the following stores, and activists are encouraged to initiate their own protests (for campaign contacts call the T&G Press Office):

London outside Hackney Tesco, Morning Lane E9 6pm

Glasgow, Argyle Street Tesco, Lanarkshire G2 6pm

Oxford Cowley Road Tesco, Oxfordshire, OX4 6pm