jueves, 18 de julio de 2013

Un nuevo sindicalismo para una nueva época: la Oficina Precaria


Escrito por:
Pablo Castaño Tierno


Ignacio Fernández Toxo y Cándido Méndez dan una rueda de prensa o se sientan a una mesa con alguien del gobierno. Esa es la imagen que tenemos del sindicalismo en nuestro país, la que aparece en los telediarios y en las portadas de grandes periódicos. Parece que Comisiones Obreras y UGT son las únicas organizaciones de trabajadores que hay. Es cierto que son las centrales sindicales mayoritarias, pero el panorama es más amplio: hay otros sindicatos de ámbito estatal, como la Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) y la Confederación General de Trabajadores (CGT) y multitud de sindicatos sectoriales. Dentro de este diverso panorama está la Oficina Precaria, una pequeña organización que cumplió un año de existencia el pasado primero de mayo. La Oficina Precaria no se define como un sindicato al uso, sino como un “espacio de coordinación para trabajadores precarios y desempleados”. En su página web se describe como “Una herramienta útil y gratuita para que los trabajadores y trabajadoras intermitentes nos organicemos desde la cooperación y la solidaridad”. Por lo tanto, la Oficina Precaria no pretende sustituir a los sindicatos tradicionales ni cuestiona que sean necesarios para defender los derechos de los trabajadores. Lo que pretende esta organización es complementar el trabajo de sus hermanos mayores, dirigiéndose a los trabajadores precarios, un sector que se siente poco identificado con los sindicatos mayoritarios por varias razones. Primero, porque un becario que sustituye a un trabajador fijo o una empleada que alterna contratos temporales con periodos de desempleo no pueden permitirse afiliarse a un sindicato. Segundo, porque las centrales sindicales tradicionales –con excepciones, como CGT- orientan su acción sobre todo a defender los derechos de los trabajadores más protegidos por la legislación laboral, a menudo dejando en un segundo plano a los precarios y los desempleados.

La Oficina Precaria pretende llenar ese vacío con diversas líneas de actuación. La primera es la asesoría legal gratuita, que responde decenas de consultas semanales tanto por correo electrónico como en persona. Es frecuente que las condiciones laborales de los trabajadores precarios sean ilegales, por lo que los abogados de la Oficina les informan de sus derechos y les exponen las vías legales para defenderlos. Por otro lado, la web de la Oficina Precaria (www.oficinaprecaria.net) tiene un apartado de autoformación con documentos producidos por ellos mismos o por otros colectivos. “Su mejor arma es nuestra ignorancia”, dicen.

Otro de los pilares fundamentales de la actividad de la Oficina Precaria es la denuncia. Todos los días oímos hablar de la altísima tasa de desempleo, pero pocas veces se oyen voces indignadas ante la precariedad que sufren –sobre todo, pero no sólo- los jóvenes. No es casualidad que la terrible cifra de 57% de paro juvenil[1] esté en boca de todos, mientras se olvida que más del 61% de los jóvenes trabajadores tienen un contrato temporal[2]. Por eso visibilizar esta situación es un objetivo prioritario para los activistas del colectivo. En la actualidad se está desarrollando la campaña “No más becas por trabajo”, que denuncia que numerosas empresas despiden a trabajadores y los sustituyen por becarios. En teoría son contratados para hacer prácticas formativas pero en realidad realizan labores propias de un trabajador normal, sin contenido educativo, gratis o a cambio de un salario miserable y sin derechos. En la web www.nomasbecasportrabajo.org se recogen testimonios de estudiantes víctimas de esta práctica y se presentan las reivindicaciones de la Oficina Precaria para acabar con este fraude de ley, que perjudica tanto a los trabajadores despedidos como a los becarios, que son explotados descaradamente. Finalmente, la Oficina Precaria defiende las cooperativas como una solución estructural a la actual situación del mercado de trabajo, en el que paro y precariedad son dos caras de la misma moneda. Por eso el colectivo asesora a las personas interesadas en crear su propia cooperativa y ofrece información y contactos útiles en el mundo del cooperativismo.

La Oficina Precaria sólo tiene un año de vida pero ya ha conseguido cosas importantes: visibilizar la situación de los becarios que son utilizados para sustituir a trabajadores, participar en movilizaciones clave como el pasado 8 de marzo en defensa de los derechos de las mujeres y la huelga general del 14 de noviembre… Pero sobre todo ha mostrado la necesidad de que los trabajadores fijos, los precarios y los desempleados se organicen desde abajo, de forma solidaria, para defender sus derechos. Porque la troika, el gobierno y la patronal nos quieren divididos y cada día se lo tenemos que poner más difícil.

@OfiPrecaria
Facebook.com/OficinaPrecaria
www.oficinaprecaria.net


[1] http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20130425/tasa-paro-juvenil-escala-572-primer-trimestre-hasta-960400-desempleados/649220.shtml
[2] http://www.expansion.com/2013/02/26/economia/1361877220.html. Esta tasa era aun mayor antes de la crisis, pero los primeros en sufrir el azote del paro han sido los trabajadores temporales, lo que ha causado la bajada de la tasa de temporalidad a “sólo” un 61,4%.

miércoles, 17 de julio de 2013

Interview to the “Iaioflautas”


Interview by: Erick Rojas Tang and Manuel Quispe Blanco.
Traslated by : Selva López.

Their ages range between sixty and eighty years old. The majorities of them have been witnesses the Spanish dictatorship and have been participants in the restoration of democracy and the establishment of the pillars of the welfare state. Nowadays, not only they are witnesses of the dismantling of the welfare state for which they fought for so long, but, moreover, they rose again to fight against the passivity of the majority of this society. Their weapons are their grays, banners, megaphones and other tools that have managed to rile more than one politician or banker. They know the effort that has been done to gain some rights that now are being removed, and this is why they fight day after day.  Their struggle is not directly related to their own interests but, as they have mentioned in many occasions, it is a fight for their children and grandchildren. We want to start our blog with a brief interview to the “Iaioflautas”.



       (From left to Right: Francisco Gonzáles 60 years old - Advocacy area, Alfonzo Romero
              61 years old -Economic area, Felipe Aranguren 61 years old - press officer)


1.-How did the “Iaioflautas” movement emerged?

Felipe: The movement arises out of the 15M. The 15 M was on May but we appear on scene in October. In the first meeting we decided our name and the type of actions that we wanted to carry on. In the beginning, we decided to do actions of civil disobedience, not really heavy matters as we are talking about old people. So we cannot say: “let’s get into some place and stay there forever”. We wanted to do concrete actions supported with concrete documents for each action. We started being 14 and at that moment we are more than 700 in Barcelona.

2. Which positive contributions would you underline since you became part of the “Iaioflautas” movement?

Alfonso: For your own welfare, because you are fighting for a cause or to reach some values that society has lost or that have been stolen and to leave a better world to our grandchildren. That is basically our mission. We do not ask anything for us and even for our children we are late… but we are still on time to leave a world in conditions, as we thought we had done (….). If with our struggle we can reach this, this will be a personal satisfaction. Moreover, it makes you enrage again to keep fighting and claiming for what is yours and what if from the working class.

3. When you hear that Botín, the president of Santander Bank, owns a fortune of approximately 1.700 million of euros, while other people do not even have money to eat. ¿What do you think that has occurred to our society to reach this point?

Francisco: We believe that capitalism does not work even if they say it does. Their way of make it function is sinking society, deepening more and more in the social gap between rich and poor. Also finishing with democracy. They are even using this crisis to put an end to the social rights that we conquered at that time. We believe that in some way a society plunged in violence is being set up. We are not talking about physical violence, but other types of violence. It is violence, for instance, the fact that there exist families eating from the bin, while others have this amount of thousands of millions. It is violence, for instance, that some actions like the ones carried out these days by the andalous workers union are being criminalized. While, on the other hand, they are granting amnesty to people that defraud… the real delinquents. Some concepts such as justice, legality, etc. are being subverted (…). In this moment, putting on jail this people that have left a supermarket with a food cart is considered justice (…). However, a Urdangarín (part of real family), a Matas (politician), a Camps (politician), a Botin, or all this people do not go in jail and will never go in jail. A society in which the values are not anymore what they used to be is being set up, everything has been subverted.

Felipe: Capitalism has changed in the last periods of times; it moves from “industrial” to “financial” and from “financial” to “speculative” and one of the things that bothers capitalism is the state. The state understood as a democratic system to serve the citizens, therefore, they want to substitute the state and eliminate it, they want to reduce it as much as possible and, at the end, occupy it… as they have done with Italy and Greece.

4. - What would you advice to young people from your experience of so many years of struggle?

Felipe: I would advice them to organize themselves, simply this. We have the impression to be learning from young people as well… they should organize themselves and be a bit more radical, that mean not to believe the stories and not to be individualists… Organizations in the sense of collectivity… for the rest, we are here to support what each one of us were already supporting in the 15 M. We just opened a new front in the struggle. I think it is important that young people become conscious that they have a future that is being shortened. I would tell them to become more radical. It is my personal opinion.

Francisco: I would add that they should not be outside politics, the one who is alien to politics is making that others do politics for him or her. We cannot stand apart, we cannot allow that others perform for us. That is why we should be active in what affects us, and what is affecting is called politics.




5.- Probably most of you have different experiences in the struggle for social rights. How do you think that new tools such as Internet or Facebook have changed the way of fighting?

Francisco: Internet, social networks....of course they are changing all the movements in general. It is the same as capitalism has managed to use new tools to reach a step further in its development. We moved from capitalism to imperialism, so there has been a series of steps and the last one has been the adaptation of new technologies to the social process and the productive process. Social movement cannot be outside all this. In the case of the “Iaioflautas” I think it is a very important tool because all our actions are being sustained by immediate communication, such as social networks. We transmit any action that we carry out on twitter or facebook. We have even become mundial  “trending topic” on twitter in many occasions. For us, the “Iaioflautas” it wouldn’t be possible to call for immediate actions without new technologies. We are a group of 700 people thanks to the fact that we are coordinating 90% of the people by electronic mail, for the rest we use the phone… Today a 15 M could not be understood without new technologies.

Felipe: Social networks are an important communicative space but we must remember that “Iaioflautas” are actions, therefore, once we have communication we do not have to stay in front of the computer all the afternoon, all the night or all the day, but we must go out after that. Communication is a tool but I am afraid that a lot of people that twitts us or see us on facebook stay in their houses instead of going in the street. Therefore, going out it’s important, taking the Tahir square… things are not carried out in the virtual space but in the real space!

6. As far as we know, you have “occupied” some bank headquarters, some buses when the transport prices grew and the headquarter of labour Promotion when the labor reform was adopted. Moreover, you’ve been received for these institutions. Our question is: did you feel any symptom of penitence or empathy from the directives when you spoke to them and when you gave them your manifesto? What could you feel when the directives received you?

Alfonso: I was in charge of delivering the manifesto and it was kind of chaotic (…) when the director received us they hurried up to put the blinds down, and I told her: “what are you doing?” and they answer me: “it is not necessary that the press see that”. So I told them: “what’s important is not you, neither me, what is important is that the press will capture this moment”, to renew consciences. Banks are feeling more and more uncomfortable with the actions of “Iaioflautas”, but what’s important is to reach as many people as possible. What is true is that the press is covering our events, because this is good material to feed newspapers and televisions, this is what really matters. The manifesto is not important, it is the action itself.

Felipe: We do not do the action to convince these people (the bankers). We think they’re a “bunch of soulless”, therefore our labor is to do political science. We do a manifesto because we have things to say, but we don’t do it for them. The rest is to make pressure: “or you receive us, or we leave”, so they recieve us. I am sure that the manifesto ends in the bin, and that these people (bankers) do not even consider it and they just go back home, caress the dog and keep doing their selfish stuff (…)

Francisco: A curious fact of an occupation that we recently did in Valencia happened in the Health Department. It has three floors and our partners were there. With the bosses we had some trouble. The problem of the bosses is that they are people “out of class”, they believe they belong to middle class, that means that they’ve forgotten that the class struggle still exists (…) they think they’re out of it…this people just ignores us. However, the rest of the people were going down the stairs (…) they met us reading the manifesto and saw our banners. A big amount of the workers started to clap to the “Iaioflautas”, while the directives kept doing their business. And then, there’s people like the supermarket cashier that forgets they’re exploiting her, that they’re not paying her to control the food and she also forgets that Mercadona is one of the companies that are doing union persecution. Not everyone has class consciousness…



7. Is there any anecdote that you would like to underline during this period of struggle?

Francisco: I’ve got anecdotes of curious and emotional mails. We’ve received quiet a lot. A few time ago we received a mail from a girl, around 14 or 15 years old. She told as that she has a problem in his building, I don’t remember very well but basically she asked us to come to her building. I told her that it was a problem that they had to solve themselves and I invited her to our next assembly… she never answered back. There are people that see us like if we were Superman or something similar… we are not.

Alfonso: there is another emotional anecdote that happened to us when we went to an almshome (…), we carried with us a power point that explained our actions. The place was like an “elephant graveyard”, they just brought them there to wait for their death. When the presentation finished, I still remember the face of a man that was sitting in a wheelchair, he was in tears and I saw that he got up of the wheelchair and he told me: “you made me remember lots of things and I wish I would have still strength…” and then he asked me a hug… Then the director told me that was the first time in 10 years that the man could stand up from the wheelchair (…) I really appreciated that.

8. We would like to know if the “Iaioflauta” responds to a concrete profile of person. Which skills must a person have to be considered “Iaioflauta”?

Alfonso: Any specific skill. He/she just has to communicate with us, come to assemblies, perform is she/he wants and join us. The condition…having a certain age, because we are “Iaioflautas” (“iaio” in spanish means ‘grandpa’” (…) being on the mood to perform but also to have fun. To sum up, in every action, like in every movement it’s important to have fun and enjoy doing it but also you the actions have to make sense for you, you have to feel that you’re doing something useful.

Felipe: Some of us have finished a performance doing an appetizer. It’s true that lots of young people say that they want to become Iaioflautas, then I tell them: “you’ve got other fronts, other things to do, you attend university or you’re working or you are in the unemployment lines, wherever”. Lots of Iaioflautas have “rejuvenated” while becoming part of the movement. One of the matters of being old is that “people alienate you from society, you’re not useful anymore,…” but now people have seen that they still have life to live and I think this is very important, the fact of wanting to stay young and being active.

9. Would you like to finish the interview with any reflection?

Felipe: My personal reflection is that we do action of civil disobedience. I think this is becoming more and more important. We should not confuse justice with law, law is unfair and actions such as the one of the andalous working union give us an idea of some people that are starting to do something and that are not afraid. I think there’re some basic elements in the system of power: ignorance and fear. The less you know is better and the more you are scared is also better for the powerful. Therefore the struggle is against ignorance, the struggle is for knowledge and for participating, so you must take your fears and put them in your pocket. I am not speaking of not being scared at all, but it shouldn’t be a fear that makes you paralyze (…) for them fear is fundamental.

Alfonso: Regarding the “fear” that Felipe mentions, obviously we’ve lost it, because in our age we are less and less scared, at least we know how to dominate our fears. We’re not scared of being fired as the majority of us are already retired or in precarious situations, so it’s difficult to turn into a worse panorama. So this makes you feel that when you breathe, your lungs start swelling no matter how important is the charge of the person standing in front of you… cause you’ve lost the fears to a possible repression that you used to have when you were young.


Francisco: I think you must or you can be scared when you’ve got something to lose, but nowadays they give us every time less things…so we’ve got less and less things to lose. There’s people that don’t have anything, so fear is superfluous (…) they’ve got to do what we do: pacific civil disobedience as the SAT laborers: entering there and taking the shopping cart without fears to occupy the property, cause they’ve got nothing to lose. When you’re stressed it’s because they’re cutting you your rights, because you don’t have a job, or a house, they’re removing you everything… in this moments it’s impossible to justify fear (…) what must be done is lose the fears that won’t get us nowhere, without fears we can do so many things (…) At our age we keep fighting, no matter the age, the condition. The struggle, the dignity, doesn’t have age. You must struggle no matter your age and the condition you are living.