Vloerwerk newsletter februari 2021: support fired anti-racist activist
Hi everyone out there. As you all know any kind of shared fun outdoors is still prohibited. Curfews dangled up and down for one night, but it seems that evening meetings will be difficult for another week or who knows how long. Life, work and all possible misery and beautiful moments that come with it naturally continue as usual. And the same way Vloerwerk!
The meetings since the last newsletter have been well attended, certainly given the circumstances. Enough has happened recently that is newsletter worthy.
Collaboration Cultural Workers Unite.
We had a small meeting in the Bollox with Joe and Lila from CWU. The joys and difficulties of organizing and campaigning have been discussed over tea. Also the importance of physical space to come together, the variability of the organizational core, the perils of workers to get them to campaign… all things that we also have to deal with. No concrete plans have yet emerged, but we remain available to each other as allies.
Collaboration: Greeks of Stop Human Trafficking.
Over a long period of time there has been frequent contact with the Greeks organizers of Stop Human Trafficking. They fight against the structural problem of exploited Greek restaurant workers. Vloerwerk published an article a while ago, which once again resulted in a nice legal threat from a not exactly solidarity-based restaurant owner in the denial phase. On of us frames these for above his bed. It has not had any further consequences yet. The organizers of Vloerwerk and Stop Human Trafficking have agreed to work together on a case. As soon as it comes…. For a moment it seemed, but the worker in question and STH turned out not to be able to come up with a campaign together. The difficulties of the workers asking for help leave little room for patience and strategy. We talked about this extensively with a handful of SHT organizers in the home of one of the main SHT activists. Amazing good Greek food, and a lot of information back and forth. The bond has been strengthened. Now we have to wait for that one worker who is looking for help, and together we jump right on top, but with policy. More must become apparent in the future.
CRM.
Speaking of collaboration, collaboration, networking and networking: One of us has made a CRM! The action system is now mainly a database with contact details and possibilities to categorize contacts and find them by category. Super handy! This was also evident in the demonstration of this new piece of digital tool. It will take some getting used to using this consistently, but the more we do that, the better it gets. It can also provide good help to other organizations with which we stand in solidarity. It still needs to be worked on, so feedback from all interested parties is more than welcome.
CED.
From one abbreviation to another. Although this one is less pleasant. Most of you probably already heard it, Vloerwerk is committed to supporting Marisella in her fight. For those who have not read it yet: Marisella has been harassed by the bastards of Vizier Op Links as a result of her anti-racist activism in Hoorn. The extreme right internet scum contacted her employer. The bosses at the CED calamity service office in Amsterdam South-East were afraid of their image, and chose to fire Marisella right away. You fight against oppression, you stand up for human rights, your employer is aware of this, and that’s all okay. But as soon as the trolls of Vizier Op Links start to cry around you will be fired ?!
That’s ofcourse not how things should go. Not for Marisella, not for anybody. Luckely enough she has a lot of fighting spirit and more than enough persistence to fight this battle. Lots of left organization showed their solidarity with Marisella and this probably makes it a lot easier to mobilise direct action together with Vloerwerk. Enough support to fight CED and put them back in their place. We will have an action meeting soon and start planning. This case will keep us busy for a while.
