The workers of Orange Fox Bike in Paris are on strike against a thug boss who exploits them like slaves. Indeed, in this tourist bike rental company, the workers work as guides or mechanics without a contract and are paid peanuts. They are demanding in particular a proper employment contract. Faced with the boss’s refusal to respect even the legal minimum, the workers decided to move to the next level and have been occupying the company for a week. They are self-organising as a collective.
Already, that workers dare to go on strike, dare to face their boss, dare to occupy their company, dare to think about alternative solutions, is quite remarkable in the current situation of defeatism and social gloom.
But what is quite exceptional is that these workers are Russian and Ukrainian! Rather than making war on each other, they practice solidarity, class solidarity! They put into practice the old adage of the workers’ movement “no war, but class war”. They demonstrate by their action that workers have the same interests, and that their enemy is not their class brother or sister but the boss who exploits them.
In the premises of the tourist bicycle rental company, the strikers made placards. They express their state of mind and joyfully brighten up the walls:
– Russians and Ukrainians, the same enemy is Capital
– work kills, strikes save
– Russian and Ukrainian workers on strike
– Half paid, completely despised
The Olga Taratuta Solidarity Initiative, established by French anarcho-syndicalists to help anti-war activists, refugees and deserters, expresses its full solidarity with these young comrades and calls for support by popularizing their struggle, disseminating information and communiqués and participating in solidarity actions such as the bike demonstration on November 22.
The anarcho-syndicalists have also opened their own solidarity fundraising with the strikers at Orange Bike. Bank transfers can be made to the account (indicating Solidarite grevistes Orange Bike): IBAN: FR81 2004 1010 1603 1175 7H03 7 45 BIC: PSSTFRPPTO Account holder: CNT-AIT. Bank: Banque Postale
Comrades are kindly requested to inform them of transfers at: contact@solidarité.online
You can also send cheques to CNT-AIT, indicating “Solidarité grévistes Orange Bike” at the following address: Olga Taratuta c/o CNT-AIT, 7 rue St Rémésy 31000 TOULOUSE
Bank: Banque Postale
(Please send an email to contact@solidarité.online to inform us of the bank transfer)
The strike by Russian and Ukrainian tour guides has been going on for a month already! The boss is still refusing us employment contracts. We, the guides and mechanics have worked for €7 per hour, some of us for 7 days a week and up to 10 hours a day. We are refugees and immigrants, some of us are activists against the war between our countries. The bosses took advantage of this situation. After the start of the strike, they threatened to do everything to send us back to our countries of origin where prison for our activism or war threatens us.