New Year will inevitably be one more year of social and ecological struggles. In the nearly ended year 2022, these struggles were often led by labour unions or broke out spontaneously, while the old social-democratic or radical left parties were either less active or treated with mistrust. Walter Baier, the newly elected chairman of Party of the European Left, pledges to lead his organisation to the forefront of the struggles.
Walter Baier speaks to the participants of the European Left congress, Vienna, December 2022. Source: Party of the European Left.
A new chapter of workers’ struggles was written by Polish activists from the Labour Confederation group. They set up an union of food delivery workers, possibly the first organization of platform workers in Central Europe. As Łukasz Ostrowski, one of the founders, explains in the interview, their aim is to fight for higher wages and special compensations for work under difficult conditions or overtime.
Are workers’ rights in danger in such a place like Finland, considered a model welfare state? Veronika Susova-Salminen points out that if a state takes a course towards NATO, it is not only a security and defence move. In Central Europe, an ambition to join NATO was intertwined with embracing neoliberal thinking of the state. Could it happen also in the North?
Cross-Border Talks publishes the speech by Siavash Shahabi, an Iranian political refugee living in Athens and contributor to The Fire Next Time. Speaking during the international feminist meeting, which was organized by the Bulgarian feminist organization LevFem and Transnational Social Strike Platform, Shahabi spoke out against indifference to the migrants’ plight. He also pointed out how senseless and unequal it is to claim that Ukrainian refugees are ‘real refugees’, while Syrians, Afghanis or Congolese people are just ‘illegal migrants’.