Lefteast
This article is part of a series by ELMO (East Left Media Outlet) that explores the gig economy and platform work in various Eastern-European countries. ELMO plans to hold a panel discussion on the topic at the end of the series. 2021 witnessed an unprecedented mobilization of online freelancers in Serbia. Thousands of people, doing […]
Note from LeftEast editors: We share this podcast with the permission of its producers from Contrasens. “Contrasens” is a podcast which explores current themes in the field of the social sciences. The project aims to bring to the forefront and make as accessible as possible research conducted by sociologists, anthropologists and other specialists from related […]
LeftEast publishes Volodya Vagner’s interview with Georgian unionists in collaboration with OpenDemocracy-Russia. Georgia has recently seen a wave of strikes by newly established unions. In summer 2018, the Ertoba2013 union, which organises Tbilisi’s metro workers, shut down the Georgian capital for several days, before the city municipality eventually met its demands. Earlier this year, a new […]
Click on the triangular “play” button above to hear this segment. In this audeo clip, first broadcast by Public Radio International/WNYC in New York, historian Peter Linebaugh discusses the history and future of International Workers Day–or, to use the title of his latest book, “the incomplete, true, authentic and wonderful history of May Day.” Many […]
Just before Polish teachers suspended their strike to allow for exams, Philippe Alcoy interviewed Dagmara. She gave us an insider view on the causes of the historic struggle of Polish teachers as well as on the solidarities of pupils and parents. From the French: Celine Cantat. Dagmara Zawistowska-Toczek has been a primary and secondary school […]
This episode looks into working conditions in the commercial cleaning sector in Italy. You will hear from migrant and local workers about their common experiences and mutual interests. The project consortium involved Multicultural center Prague (lead), University of Padua, “Our choice” foundation, Red House Center for Culture and Debate, Estudios y Cooperación para el Desarrollo […]
Employees of Audi Hungary in the western city of Györ conducted a successful seven-day strike in late January. It was the AHFSZ (Audi Hungaria Independent Trade Union) that led the strike. The AHFSZ currently has 9,700 members in the plant (72% of the workers) and defines itself as a “union independent from all political parties […]
This interview exploring Madlen Nikolova, Jana Tsoneva and Georgi Medarov’s recent research on subcontracting, inequality and worker resistance in Bulgaria was originally published on the website of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. Most people probably associate outsourcing and subcontracting, whereby a company pays another company (usually in a country where wages and labour standards are significantly […]
The next installment in the series, “Europe is Working,” this podcast focuses on the poor working conditions of supermarkets and hypermarkets in Czechia, and the possibilities for collective action by workers both “native” and “migrant.” This podcast was originally published at podcasts.ceu.edu as part of the project “Towards Shared Interests between Migrant and Local Workers” […]
Editors’ Note: Over the last three decades or so, the workplace has receded from visibility in scholarship and in cultural productions. This disappearance is a global phenomenon of the neoliberal era, but the shift in East European societies, which used to valorize labor in many ways, has been particularly extreme. To the outside observer, it […]