Dont act like a woman, please! & Language Police!

Andalusia has to be one of the most sexist place I had been. And I am not just talking about the society generally, but about the anarchist movement. Well, I am gonna give you a very remarkable example happened yesterday.

On the thursday evening around 7pm, a group of  activist gathered in fron the Ocean Publishing buildings to protest, everything was much the same, people waving flag and shouting to the company, we have done this thousand times, nothing so speical. But… if you take a look closerly, the people who hold the microphone 9 out of ten are the man, and if you hear careful, the man was shoutting “XXX dont you act like a woman, come down and speak to us”. (Pause!! what did you say?) Acted like a Woman? you mean Woman like me? The comrade standing right next to you? “Exuse me” another comrade came up to him and said to him “dont talk like this, you are being sexist” (Fair enough, finally some man knows better) “Hey dont say WOMAN, you can say he acted like a fag(gay), but not woman, it is disrespect to the woman”

What? Wait, wait…. Stop right there, what did you say?

My english friend paused and went up to talk to the man, yeah, well “what did you say?” and the man started to try to explain my friend what “a gay man” means, he thought she didnt understand that, and that’s why we are questioning that……

The first few days I arrive in this region of Europe, I asked about the queer movement, I am not a queer, but I love queers, some of the most intelligent people I met in many place are the queers, for example as in Japan and London, most of them approve you a dissent/gender equal/anti speicist environement. A lot of time I depending their exist in one place to know if this place is really “liberated”. Or a lot of time I just want to meet them up and ask them what they see, to know the real face of one place, if there’s any gender/sex/structureless-authority exist, they are the person who can tell you a lot of things, and the ones that is willing to discuss about the problems.

And for my informations, there isnt really a queer group exist now in Sevilla, I had not yet met any queers during this 3 months I am here, and our life is packed up with many of sexist jokes. Most of the people I ever asked about gender issues thought there’s isnt such issue exist, or unnecessary to discuss/battle/liberate about it.

The woman are free as how they want to be. Queers can be queers its their personal choice. – But is this really true?

The same repression for sex happens to the “immigrations”. Most of the people claim themselves “internationlist” when they dont have to deal with migrants, they think everybody coming from an ouside world should “respect” the “local”. Which means they are able to do everything as the tradition says, if they have a tradition to eat meat then they should, if they have their own langauge they should speak the language, and if they have a tradition to lock the woman at home they should, if they have tradition to fuck the sheep they can, and you should too. And if they have the tradition to think all the asian are chinese, they can call a korean chinese as they like. This “internationalist” attitude is very strong and becoming a root of the “pride” like “nationalist” to me.

However people get always so “offensive” and “defensive” when you want to talk about this problem with them…

“So, what do you think about this attitutde that toward the discrimitation against the immigrations?” And they try to expalin you this is not a “discrimitaion” it is a “culture”.

Really? A culture that base on the discrimination against  immigrations? A cutlure that block out all other dissent? A culture that has no understanding to a person coming from outside of this culture? A culture that is not open but close and not flexable, and has no understanding to any different possibility of culture difference?

But of couse, this isnt only happen and being a very serious issue in Andalusia, Japan is as much worse, or probably alot more worse than here.

And I started to make names for this kind of atttitude,

“Spanishi Food Naism”- spanish people have so many “rules” when it comes to food, you should only eat something with something, and something is not suppose to cook in some ways… blah blah…. its true facist over on food.

“Culture Leadership” – this is my fucking country, you do everything fucking the way i am used to do, i dont care if you are an arabic or Indonesia, you just fucking do what i am used to, so i am pleased, if you have problem with that, I wouldnt say “why dont you fuck off to your own country” but i sure will use similiar idea to say what i am ganna say….. MY COUNTRY! MY WAY!

“Language Police” – ” soy blah blah….”  “oh fuck off, you cant speak spanish”  “i am trying” (turn away, started to talk to another person) “hey man i am not finishing here” (say to another person “she cant speak spanish, i dont understand what she is saying”) Or they want make you repeat hundred times of one word, when they cant even pronuce another english work right too.

[CNT Utrera] Interview with Jesus Rojas the struggle worker in Grupo Prasur

its been almost 5 months without pay, the workers are in real struggle in Grupo Prasur. The Company promised they would pay off the workers on 14 of April, but again they failed their promise.

At this moment they especially need your support for the solidarity. more infos pelase go to http://prasurenlucha.blogspot.com/

Interview script (by Antonio CNT sevilla)
Me llamo Jesus Rojas, soy trabajador de la empresa Prasur y soy delegado de la seccion sindical de CNT en la empresa. La cuestion es que somos trabajadores de esta empresa y llevamos cuatro meses y medio, casi cinco, sin recibir ningun salario. Nada. El empresario suele decir que es por culpa de los que nos manifestamos aqui, en la Plaza, o vamos al Ayuntamiento o nos movilizamos. Bajo mi punto de vista, segun dice el, no somos mas de un 10% de la plantilla los que nos manifestamos. La verdad es que si hay que culpar a alguien, que se culpe el por haber llegado a la situacion que se ha llegado, a la de cuatro meses y medio de no pagarnos, no hay que culpar a nadie mas. El primer culpable es el. Por que? Pues no se si es porque es un empresario joven, no ha sabido llevar a la empresa por donde tenia que haberla llevado, ni afrontar la crisis por donde tenia que haberlo hecho. Solo sabe decir que somos nosotros los culpables y que los bancos le han denegado la firma por nuestras manifestaciones. Mi duda es, que si realmente los bancos no le han firmado por nuestra culpa, por manifestarnos aqui, que vengan los directores de los bancos, el BBVA, la Caixa, Caja Madrid el que sea. Y que personalmente me digan ellos a mi senores, no firmamos porque ustedes os manifestais. Y yo, aqui presente, tanto como mis companeros que estan aqui, os juramos que no nos ven mas el pelo en ninguna manifestacion. Pero hombre a donde vamos a llegar. Si aqui hay alguna culpa, es suya por no pagarnos. Nosotros solo estamos pidiendo nuestro derecho, que nosotros seguimos trabajando y acabamos de mandar 100 casetas para Lebrija, salen modulos a diario, estan saliendo modulos vendidos para el circuito de Jerez se mueve mucho dinero alli. Donde esta yendo el dinero?. Eso quisiera yo saber. Por que quiere mas espera?. Tampoco lo se. La cuestion es la que es, cuatro meses y medio sin pagar. Nosotros somos 110 trabajadores, los companeros estan asustados y la cuestion es que la empresa tambien tiene otra nave, mas antigua donde comenzo esta fabrica a funcionar. Yo trabajo en la fabrica nueva. Pues por haberme metido en esto y pedir mi salario, segun dicen ellos yo soy un radical, y me han echado de esa nave y han vuelto a abrir la fabrica vieja que tenian abandonada donde estaban los aluminios. Nos estan mandando alli a trabajar porque dice que somos malas influencias para los companeros. Si decirle la verdad a los companeros y no enganarlos es mala influencia pues yo no se que pensamientos tienen esas personas.
El tema es que aqui llevamos cuatro meses y medio, y aqui los que hacen fuerza son los companeros. Si alguien tiene que esta asustado es el y no nosotros los trabajadores. Que la empresa depende de los trabajadores, nosotros somos los que hacemos que gane el empresario dinero. Y cuando la empresa ha ganado mucho dinero mi nomina no ha subido de dinero. Su saldo bancario si ha subido pero mi nomina no. Asi que deje ya de culpar a nadie. Si tiene ganas de culpar a alguien mas que se culpe a si mismo, que ya esta bien.

[Japan]京都大学時間雇用職員組合 Union Extasy

兩位在京都大学工作的計時勞工，展開在京都大學校區內為期6個星期的佔領抗議，兩人組成稱為「京都大学時間雇用職員組合 Union Extasy 」。

這兩位計時勞工，因為將面臨5年契約到期不續聘的問題而展開這波行動抗議，

for employees hired on or after fiscal 2005, limited contract employment to a maximum five years, after which universities were barred from hiring the same person as a contract worker. In other words, the schools must now choose to either take them on as a full-time employee (and provide all the job security and regular pay raises that entails) or hire someone else on a contract basis. Kyoto University apparently decided to go with the cheaper option

從2月23日開始這兩個人在京都大學的校園搭棚抗議。跟朋友在聊這事時提到一個有趣的問題，這兩人的工作薪資是120,000相當於日本最低收入的勞工階級，主要是這種的工作多半為二度就業婦女貼補家用，離家拋頭露面的工作類型之一，所以薪資如此低廉，這顯示出了日本在一般就業中人普遍存在的就業性別歧視。就之前跟日本朋友聊天所深刻感受到的，一般任本人對職業作為個人尊嚴的代表感到不可思議的荒謬，在日本，作為贏家跟輸家，就是那麼黑白兩面。

住在日本的朋友寫的報導 ：

According to the Asahi, Kyoto University has issued a final warning demanding the dispersion of two men who have been camping out on the university main campus for a month. The pair formed their own union, called Union Extasy in English, to demand that their employment contracts be extended past their five year maximum. Thirty supporters, presumably members of the regular Kyoto University workers’ unions who have taken a position supporting improved conditions for campus part-timers, stood with them in solidarity.

The crowd scene could be a sign that the moment when the university forcibly removes the two from campus could end up becoming a publicized confrontation, similar to the one seen at the Shinagawa Keihin Hotel earlier this year, when police forced the staff of the bankrupt hotel from keeping the business open against the wishes of the owners. The event was apparently crowded with both protesters and journalists, making for an enormous spectacle, itself something of a replay of the “temporary employee village” set up in Hibiya Park over the new year holiday.

The two men, both in their late 30s, were doing data entry work for the agricultural faculty for monthly wages of around 120,000 yen, according to an earlier report. I find it just amazing that they were both able to live on that much (20,000 yen/month apartments, probably a very meager diet).

A JANJAN citizen reporter who interviewed the strikers  notes that of Kyoto University’s 5,400-strong staff, 2,600 are part-timers, 85% of them female.

The employment rules for university part-timers are on paper intended to promote full-time, indefinite employment. Universities are basically required to prioritize permanent hires and can only hire contract employees on a provisional basis. However, in typical lukewarm fashion, when the Kyoto U and other national universities  were officially branches of the education ministry, Kyoto University signed non-permanent employees to 364-day contracts, theoretically terminated employment on March 31, “re-hired” the same people the next day for another term, and repeated this process for years. Exploiting this loophole had the added benefit that none of the “new employees” needed to be given raises from the previous year.

But when the national universities were corporatized in 2004, the rules changed. The ministry decided to close this loophole and instead, for employees hired on or after fiscal 2005, limited contract employment to a maximum five years, after which universities were barred from hiring the same person as a contract worker. In other words, the schools must now choose to either take them on as a full-time employee (and provide all the job security and regular pay raises that entails) or hire someone else on a contract basis. Kyoto University apparently decided to go with the cheaper option at the time, and now five years later they have this protest on their hands along with all the creative artwork that’s come with it:

The decision for these older men to protest may have been in part due to their stated desire to raise the wage levels for this type of work. The assumption for years has been that this so-called “part-time” work is the province of housewives in need of extra cash, so the fact that they are men and not basically dependents of their spouses breaks with this stereotype. And of course, this also implies the question,  what difference does it make whether men or women are expected to fill the position?

The university Director involved in the labor negotiations has argued that non-permanent employees have no “operational responsibility”—in other words, they are not expected to become Company Men and accept forced transfers or other duties that would come with permanent status. But in an era of decreased job opportunities to the point that men are competing for jobs that were traditionally seen as women’s work, these old divisions seem pretty irrelevant.

Despite the clearly brazen and confrontational tactics taken by the union, asking to change this arbitrary rule seems pretty reasonable. Saga University has apparently already done so. They apparently are not asking to be taken on as full timers, just for a raise and the chance to stay on.

As often happens when observing events in Japan, I get the feeling that viewed from the outside this issue seems simple – just allow indefinite part-time employment, and leave the decision of who to promote to full-time status up to the university managers. I can understand the university’s reluctance to take on indefinite staff – in these uncertain economic times and an era of declining population, I wouldn’t want to promise someone a job for the next 30 years either. But there is strong resistance in Japan to a system of at-will employment, and the US model that I am used to is certainly not an obvious path to prosperity.

In addition, the various parties have widely divergent agendas. I would imagine the politics of a university employees union must be quite intense indeed, and they along with the bureaucrats have a vested interest in maintaining the seishain system of stable employment and regular pay increases, at the expense of everyone else. In addition, other actors such as the Japan Communist Party have a somewhat extreme vision of maintaining employment, as seen in their platform of forcing companies to use their “internal reserves” to maintain employment.

(Photos courtesy JANJAN)

文章相關討論請至原Po http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/03/27/two-man-union-on-strike-at-kyoto-university/

More Video : http://www.youtube.com/user/yomogimovie

I wish I can tell you his name, but its untold. The process is slow, and I am puting up this decaration for nothing speical. its pointless of all these lies that we used to make up, to make ourselves feel better so we dont feel so worthless and speechless becuase if not so, things would be any different or wouldnt.

賽維爾讓我瘋狂，我想逃離這裡，揍扁每個人。

[CNT Sevilla] Workers of Editorial Océano in Struggle

5 girls who work in the Editorial Océano for telephone marketing were sacked under union activities.

16th of April, a group of CNT activities include 5 girls who were working in Editorial Océano protested in the front gate of Editorial Océano, they demand for the justice for these 5 girls who were illegally fired. The woner of the Editorial Océano claim the company is facing redundant, that’s why they sacked these 5 girls who was taking union activites, but while according to some convinced evidence, the company is also making recruitment right after they fired these 5 girls.

The girls told us, they were trying to fight over for their contract when the company tried to turn it into an illegal contract, the girls tried a few time to make negociation about the contract, but the company was not interested in making any agreement with them. In March the girls were fired without advnaced notice, some of the them have not received salaries after december.

On the same time of 16th April, Sagunto, Barcelona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife joined the solidarity fight by protesting in their local brench of Editorial Océano.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
The scrpit of the interview : (recorded by Antonio CNT Sevilla)
Somos las 5 teleoperadoras de por la tarde, y entonces nos ofrecieron cambiarnos el tipo de contrato, quitarnos el sueldo fijo que teníamos y cobrar sólo la comisión. Dijimos que no, que no lo queríamos eso, y como no quisimos eso nos echaron. A una de las compañeras, Gema, le falsificaron su baja laboral, con lo cual ahora no tiene derecho a subsidio de paro ni a ningún otro subsidio. A otra compañera la insultaron, le dijeron que no merecía estar trabajando donde estaba trabajando. Las 5 éramos afiliadas a la CNT y ninguno de los despidos me fue notificado a mí como delegada de la sección sindical. Desde el mes de Febrero, principios de Marzo, estamos aquí concentrándonos en la puerta de la empresa. La empresa no se ha dignado a hablar con nosotros pero sí ha venido el jefe de Barcelona, el jefe del jefe de aquí de Sevilla, y es el que parece que está intentando solucionar las cosas, pero a fecha de hoy tampoco están resueltas. Ayer tuvimos el acto de conciliación y según ellos somos nosotros los que no quisimos llegar a ningún acuerdo, cosa que no es cierta ya que es lo que nosotros estamos pidiendo.

Desde el principio hemos querido hablar con ellos y lo que queríamos es que nos readmitieran. Ayer en el acto de conciliación no nos atendieron. Primeramente el jefe de Barcelona nos dijo que nos iba a pagar lo que nos debía. Ha pagado a todas las chicas menos a una que todavía le debe matrículas y salarios desde el mes de Diciembre. Después, el jefe de aquí de Sevilla directamente no se ha presentado y hoy ha venido el jefe de Barcelona nuevamente y nos ha comunicado que quería que llegáramos a una negociación. Mañana nos vamos a sentar con él para intentar llegar a ese acuerdo pero el de Sevilla no nos atiende, y la demanda judicial sigue para adelante con la gente de Sevilla, claro.

Nosotras en principio queríamos recuperar nuestro puesto de trabajo pero como la situación ya ha llegado a tal deterioro que pensamos que lo mejor es que nos indemnicen económicamente y nos vamos cada una a nuestra casa. Ya no queremos saber más de estos sin vergüenzas y piratas.