Interview with fired union organiser from the Lionbridge corporation, Poland

16/04/2008

As Priama akcia informed in December 2007 a nonhierarchical union was founded in Lionbridge Technologies in Warsaw, Poland. On 12th February, Jakub G. - member of the union - was sacked. The dismissal came shortly after the official announcement of existence of the union in the company. Jakub told us more about the case in the following interview.

What does Lionbridge exactly do as a company?

Lionbridge translates software and documentation for other corporations, for example Microsoft, or Adobe. If you see Windows or Photoshop translated into local languages – companies like Lionbridge did it for Microsoft or Adobe. There are about 300 people employed in Warsaw – mostly as project managers, testers, engineers and DTP specialists. Translation is outsourced to individuals. In fact, this translation company hardly employs any translators and relies on temporary workers (who may or may not get jobs any given month) for translation. Translators are treated as least important and paid last (often after several months delay). This is a classical example of the parasitism of a corporation: a whole multi-million organization exists to exploit badly paid individual workers with no stable employment, without whom the organization wouldn't be able to translate a single word.

Why did you decide to form a union in Lionbridge?

The idea about forming a union was mentioned in conversations among workers for a long time. It surfaced each time the bosses were acting in a dishonest way, like firing one of the workers without reason, refusing to pay bonuses, etc... For many years people only kept complaining. At some point it was necessary to do something about it. The impulse came after the company formerly known as Bowne Global Solutions was bought by Lionbridge and a new country manager was hired. This marked a clear drop in the atmosphere at the workplace in terms of working conditions and slowly different benefits were taken away from workers, little by little. I think this is what caused more interest among workers to create a union.

Some comments on general situation in Poland that would help us to more understand the context of the matter?

The current Polish government is ultra-liberal and is seriously threatening to dismantle all social protections in the labour code. This is meant to increase „competitiveness” of the Polish economy and provide „prosperity” for everyone. So far, it has only provided hardship for the working population, as real-estate prices have risen beyond what people could afford even if they accept to indebt themselves for practically their whole lives. The „consumer boom” is fueled only by credit and not by rising wages. This means that people will end up deep in the shitter once the artificial economic bubble explodes. Corporations such as Lionbridge don't want people to earn more – they prefer to move to other countries as soon as they can find people willing to work for less and other corrupt governments willing to give them tax breaks. This way of thinking leads to a global economic crisis.

What was the immediate reaction of the company and what they did later?

At first, the company pretended that nothing has happened. Then, they tried to convince us that „we are doing something wrong and that the company will lose credibility with the US headquarters”. In the end, they tried to argue that making a union is „bad for the workers” because fewer jobs will come to Poland, and Lionbridge bosses in USA will decide to transfer workplaces to non-unionised subsidiaries. They were obviously looking for a way to get rid of the union.

What was the official reason of your lay-off (and what do you think was the real one)?

The official reason was that I have supposedly „broken confidentiality agreements by publishing secret information on an anarchist web site”. They didn't say which web site and did not provide any evidence for their allegations. What they wrote was ridiculous: they claimed that I have caused the rate of Lionbridge shares to fall on the NASDAQ stock-exchange because „financial institutions closely watch antiglobalist websites”. It is ridiculous that someone has thought of this accusation. The real reason was of course to scare workers and show them that a union organizer would not be tolerated by the company.

What was the reaction of your colleagues to your lay-off?

My colleagues were shocked and didn't believe this could have happened. Most of them didn't have this kind of experiences before and still had illusions about how corporations work. They felt intimidated by this situation and were afraid for their own jobs. The managers also tried to calm them down with little concessions.
My colleagues wrote a protest to the management and send it around the company. They wrote that it appears that there were no grounds for me being fired and that they will support me in court. Even such a simple letter caused very strong criticism from management for "disloyalty" towards the company.
For the moment funds are being gathered and I expect that something will be organized soon. It is a bit too early to talk about it.

What action of support have been taken in Poland?

Not much so far. Information about the case has been published in several websites and newspapers  but the momentum isn't there yet. I hope this will change soon. Bosses shouldn't see that their policies of carrot and stick are working.

What is the interest in unions in the sector?

The sector isn't unionised at all. For many people, it is their first job and they don't treat it as something permanent. Freelancers have even more problems to join together as they might not even have contact with each other.

Isn´t it better to flexibily change employer and make better job this way? For example team leader in Zilina said that if you didn´t like conditions in the company, you should have had find job somewhere else and not form unions? What you say to this?

Changing the employer is not going to change anything at all. In fact, the employers have a strategy which takes into account high rates of turnover (people coming and going). They know that there will be enough people who will still ask for jobs even if the present employees leave. It's better for them to offer first-time low-paid jobs to new people rather than pay good wages to people who want to work longer for the company. Leaving is a perfect solution for bosses, not for workers. How can you improve things by running away? You will end up with the same shitty conditions somewhere else.

Is team leader considered in the company as the one who sides with the boss or with the employees?

That depends. Of course the class interests of the team leader make him or her often side with the employers, but on the other hand team leaders are chosen from lower ranking workers and sometimes they still act in solidarity with the rest of the team. So, you might see both types of behaviour. In our union, we have decided to exclude people who can at the same time hire, fire and set wages of workers. We don't want bosses in the union. However, in modern corporations, the division of labour is such that very often workers are delegated some managerial tasks. This might involve some elements of approving other people's work. This is a grey area and we decided that only people who have full rights to hire and fire are excluded from the union.

What is your current financial situation? I remember you mentioned you have no savings.

I would like to thank everybody who has supported me. So far, I have found another job and I am more or less surviving. However, I'm having some debts because of the legal costs I had to cover up front. And yes, most of my earnings went to supporting anarchist projects of different kinds, so I did not save much over the years.

What do you expect the trial brings?

According to the lawyer, there is practically no chance that the employer can prove the charges they  brought against me (publishing a company secret and causing losses to the company). So the court will probably decide that the firing was illegal and either reinstate me or give me a compensation. This might take a year or more, depending on different things. Of course, later on the employer can try different tricks to try to keep me out of the workplace.

What do you do in meantime?

I have found another job as a PHP programmer. I try to continue my political activities, such as maintaining an anarchist library/infoshop in Warsaw, organizing antimilitarist campaigns against the missile shield, etc...

How the reader of these interview could help your case?

There will soon be an international day of action against Lionbridge organized with the help of the IWA. Lionbridge has many offices around the world and we expect many people to join pickets. You can write about the case on your portals and blogs, write to the company telling them that firing union members will not be tolerated and that workers around the world will make sure that they don't get away with it.

Whether you lose or win the trial - what then?

Well, I hope I win soon and that a victory in this case will show workers that it is worth organizing and standing for your rights and that you can lose only by doing nothing. We hope to bring more people into the structures of our union based on direct democracy and recallable delegates, with no union-bosses, where every member is equal and has the same right to decide. We really need to try to unionize the growing sector of office workers, so that things start changing for the better for this group of the working population.

The interview was made for www.priamaakcia.sk in early April 2008.

See also:
Protest action in Lionbridge, Zilina, Slovakia
Locations of Lionbridge all over the world: http://www.lionbridge.com/lionbridge/en-US/company/locations.htm

Priama akcia –  Slovak section of the International Workers Association
Web: www.priamaakcia.sk
E-mail: priamaakcia(at)priamaakcia(dot)sk