News - 03.12.04
von FAU-IAA
Agenturschluss International (english)
Close down all Job Centres and Personal Service Agencies on the 3rd of January 2005!
If on the 1st of January 2005 the new ‘Hartz laws’ become law, we call for the closure of all job centres (Arbeitsagenturen) and personal service agencies throughout Germany. On the first working day of the new year, Monday the 3rd of January 2005, we are going to block the introduction of ‘Hartz IV’. We call on you - whether with occupations, blockades or demonstrations to help disrupt the burocracy of the unemployment benefit offices.
We must stop the destruction of our everyday lives and create spaces to express our fears, our rage and our own ideas of a worthy life.
Whether we manage to create the necessary social strength to force the government to abandon their ‘Hartz laws’ with our demonstrations, we do not know. However, our rage and our fantasy is still strong!
In particular we call on you to get involved in the work agency action week from the 2nd until the 5th of November and the country wide demonstration at the offices of the ‘federal agency for work’ (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) on the 6th of November in Nürnberg.
Even if the ‘Hartz laws’ become part of our everyday life, the social protest and resistance against it will not end. Laws come and go! We reject the social misery with which we are now faced. Instead let us be inspired by the protests against the poll tax in the UK in the beginning of the 1990s. Demonstrations and civil disobedience there, put an end to the UK government’s plans.
Many people understand that the attack we are now faced with, is an attack equally on the unemployed as on those in employment. For those who are working, the new laws are there simply to force them into accepting worse conditions – with the threat of poverty. For the unemployed they mean benefit cuts and being forced into cheap labour. And for both – increased pension and health insurance contributions.
We should also not forget that many of the so called charitable organisations such as Caritas, Diakonie or AWO are all planning to profit from the introduction of a type of modern ‘hard labour’, making them clear targets for the resistance against the new laws.
Today in our common everyday life there is no difference between those in work and those out of work. And there lies the possibility for us to come together in protest and resistance – and not only against the ‘Hartz laws’.
The current changes to the welfare state are also changing the tasks of the new work agencies. Let us look at the example of the so called ‘support’ unemployed people are to be ‘offered’. The new agencies put controlling their so called ‘customers’ - the unemployed, into the forefront and helping them into the background. When ‘agencies for work’ become nothing more than ‘work police’, we question their right to exist. It is for this that we call on you help close the agencies as a step to closing them once and for all.
What exactly will happen on the 3rd of January 2005 in the work agencies and PSAs, depends entirely on you, on your anger and on what you feel capable of! It is our aim to meet together in the offices - to close them down, to protest and to discuss all of our possibilities – this does not exclude the agency workers.
Should we be greeted by closed doors, then we will have already (partially) reached our goals – maybe we can gain entry another way – perhaps we already have a few plans.
Until then: Organise yourselves! Block the agencies in your town or city! Lets bring the Monday demonstrations on the 3rd of January to the ‘work agencies’ and the PSAs.
Keep up to date! There is more to life than work!
Agenturschluss -
Paralyze employment and personal service agencies on 3rd Jan., 2005!
To:
The employees of Employment Agencies, working-groups / job centers and social security offices, for whom the unemployed aren’t just a 'cost factor' ...
Dear colleague,
workload, mad rush and extra-hours notwithstanding, we hope you may have
enough patience to read these lines.
We protesters against the Hartz Acts are referring to you, as we are convinced that we all share common interests and should unite in fighting against restructuring of the job market, against deteriorating working conditions, and cuts in social services. We are to be forced into accepting low-wage jobs, which will erode all wages and pay-scales. Employees of job agencies have to work longer, too, basic wage agreements have been cancelled and the grant of a Christmas bonus is doubtful ...
Our protest is also directed against the Employment Agency and working groups / job centers, as this is the scene where the degrading Hartz Acts are mainly being put into practice. These are the places, where people rejected by the capital are obliged to prove their right to exist, where they are forced into accepting work unfit to secure their livelihood (extremely low wages, subcontracted employment), where they are kept under surveillance and are punished on top of that by benefit cuts or even stop of payment.
Our protest is directed against those who believe to just do any old job – though promotion is hardly talked about any more, and jobs aren‘t in sight either, against those who, contrary to the Constitution, are even urging unemployed people to leave trade unions.
Our protest is NOT directed against those employees of agencies and offices, who don‘t agree either, that people should be treated in such a degrading manner – we do hope for and rely on mutual solidarity!
The chairman of ver.di trade union, Frank Bsirske, has opposed protest actions in front of employment agencies and turned against Aktion Agenturschluss, arguing that it was „politics“ which passed those laws, not the employees. He’s right: those laws were passed by „politics“ – unfortunately with the partial consent of the trade union head offices, including ver.di, though they didn’t approve of ALG II. All laws, however, not only these repressive ones, remain meaningless paper, as long as they are not put into practice!
In your capacity as a placement officer and case manager, you will conclude integration contracts with „clients“ and decide, whether, for instance, „clients“ even have to accept 1-Euro-jobs as an opportunity for work.
According to international law also valid in Germany, obligatory work under threat of punishment is banned (Declaration of Human Rights 1948, article 25, par. 1). With all the pressure, with all the control and statistics, which is exerted on you as well, and not least, with the anxiety of loosing your job, you‘ve still got some scope – use it in favour of the persons affected please, and support our protests against these laws!
There are colleagues who definitely use this scope in terms of support for the affected people – your „clients“ know some of them, and you will certainly know them, too. We don’t have in mind to let them off the hook.
Critical members of the Employment Office staff have to deal with those of their colleagues who act in anticipating obedience. They are subjected to pressure and control from the powers that be, too, they have to accomplish goals set by them. We demand of a trade union that it may support us all in resisting this pressure from the powers that be, that it may help you to refuse to exert pressure towards those at the bottom.
Dear colleague, we are aware of the fact that you are a victim of the Hartz Acts as well, that you also have to fear the deterioration of working conditions or even the loss of your job. We are opposed to privatization of agencies, too! And we are opposed to privatization of risks of life.
There are many reasons to fight – together!
Aktion Agenturschluss
Union information by
(Free Workers Union - International Workers Association)
Thanks to the translators
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