Successful second celebration of Labour Day in Leiden

Today Labour Day was celebrated for the second time on the square in front of the DZB forced labour centre. Yesterday May 1st, the management of the centre unexpectedly declared a day of leave. It was an attempt to prevent an increase in contacts between the forced labourers and the activists who were planning to celebrate this day together. The management succeeded in part, because most of the forced labourers left immediately when they heard they had the day off. This is understandable, because they did not want to be in this disgusting place with its repressive atmosphere a second longer than necessary.

The original text in Dutch (with pictures) (may 2nd, 2013) Translated into English by Jet

The second celebration was without a party tent but with drinks and food and speeches. Like on May 1st, some 25 people participated in the celebration. Today only 10 activists and sympathisers of Doorbraak were able to join, since the others had to work. But at least 15 forced labourers came outside to talk to us, and that was exactly the reason for this celebration.

From the many discussions we learned that our activities are a constant topic of conversation, from the highest level down: everyone is talking about it. The forced labourers also thanked us for the day off yesterday, that was the obvious result of our actions. There is no better concrete example of our success. The protest is very much alive, and this is also resulting in many ideas and proposals from the forced labourers for new protest actions. The brainstorming for the meeting on May 14 is already taking place!

An estimated dozen or so forced labourers were afraid to come to the square and remained inside or went to the back of the building for a smoke. Contrary to yesterday the guards did not allow us to walk to that side of the building. However, the forced labourers did give out leaflets in the centre themselves.

Today we learned from the Leidsch Dagblad newspaper that Mr. De Haan, the responsible alderman of the Christian Democrat Party, does not accept our criticism regarding his employees of the centre. We were told that he is considering filing a complaint against us for insult. As usual he did not go into the content of the criticism, namely that every day his civil servants force people to work for less than the minimum wage, and that this forced labour is taking away regular paid jobs.

Eric Krebbers