On june 4th, twenty years after the 1989 elections in Poland, Polish
trade union "Workers Initiative" (OZZ "Inicjatywa Pracownicza") is
holding a demonstration in Gdańsk. Be there with us and help organize
the protest.

When twenty years ago we were promised a new Poland, we believed that
what was to come would bring us freedom, social justice and equality -
values abused by the old regime defining itself as socialist. Now
however, we know that the whole political transformation process was
only an excuse for a wild privatisation of industries leading to a
complete bereavement of the society from deciding on its own future.

What their democracy consists of is undesputed. It is a system ran by
corrupt elites racing towards their neoliberal paradise. Like under
the communist regime, the society is again being pushed away from any
debate, even when the country is to decide on such important issues as
NATO membership, entering the Eurozone, or having US air defence
systems installed on Polish territory. The difference between the past
and the present is only skin-deep: trading Moscow for Washington D.C.
and Brussels. The worker is, as (s)he was, powerless. Exploited by
employers, (s)he cannot even defend him/herself, because the law and
government agencies entitled to protect workers fail to do their job,
leaving the individual worker bound to lose.

Twenty years ago it was clear, who were the tyrants and who were the
rebels. Nowadays, former rebels came to be the tyrants, and former
labour activists subscribe to strike-smashing. We saw this in Ozarow
cable factory (2002), we saw it at Warsaw nurses' camp (2007) and
elsewere.

We have been told that capitalism was the safest and most efficient
economic system. Nowadays we are told to face a major economic crisis
caused by stock market speculations and by white-collar thieves. We
believe that the only way for a democracy is one without middlemen,
free from influence of multinational corporations, a democracy without
capitalism. This is why we call for participation in our protest
against hypocrisy, against wasting our money on luxurious summits of
top politicians, against neoliberal elite's dictatorship.

info web page: www.4czerwca.org
e-mail:  czwartyczerwca@tlen.pl
where: Gdansk
when: june 4th, 12:00