Sindicatul Liber al Oamenilor Muncii din România
The union SLOMR ( SLOMR , German Free Trade Union of Workers of Romania ) was in February 1979 in protest against the pervasive control by the Romanian Communist Party in the former Socialist Republic of Romania established. It grew to a membership of 2,400 within four weeks, but was crushed by the Securitate secret service within the next three months .
The events took place a year before the Polish trade union Solidarność was founded.
history
Beginnings
In January 1979, a group of fifteen workers from the shipyards of the Danube port Drobeta Turnu Severin approached the doctor and intellectual Ionel Cană with the proposal to found a union . Cană, who had already assisted the workers in drawing up petitions to complain about the prevailing working conditions, agreed to the request.
The founding declaration was signed by 20 people. The declaration included the names, professions and addresses of the 20 founding members. It was further described therein that the organization was founded under current Romanian law and is affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions . Reference was also made to the deterioration in working and living conditions and the restrictions on the expression of opinion and the representation of workers' interests. The document also mentioned that there would be no political forces behind the new union, but that its representatives would be concerned with ensuring justice in social areas and their work.
The program of the new union included the fight against unemployment, for better working conditions, for safety at work in the factories, for an increase in the subsistence level and pension payments, as well as a reduction in weekly working hours and a minimization of unpaid overtime. The union was convinced of its legality and asked for an open dialogue with the state authorities about these demands.
Soon around 2,400 workers from various cities in the country such as Bucharest , Ploieşti , Constanța , Târgu Mureş and Timişoara joined the new workers' representation, which implemented its program through demands such as freedom for all working people including the farmers, free choice of job and the right to appropriate Wages for the farmers as well as the right to freely sell their products and an end to terror and internment in psychiatric clinics for those who demand that their rights be respected.
The Romanian Orthodox priest and dissident Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa offered himself as a pastor. The union was also supported by writer and dissident Paul Goma . An additional manifesto was published calling for the legalization of non-state unions and the right to join them.
On March 4, 1979, Noël Bernard's founding declaration was read out on Radio Free Europe .
oppression
The establishment of the SLOMR and its constituent declaration were promptly answered with a wave of repression against the organization and its members. There were extensive arrests, involuntary admissions to psychiatric clinics, exile, systematic harassment, beatings, as well as shortened legal proceedings and prison terms for the founders and the leading members. Ion Cană was sentenced to seven years in prison for “spreading fascist propaganda”, but was released in 1980.
The remaining members of the SLOMR protested against the arrests of their members in an open letter to Nicolae Ceaușescu in April . Cană's successor as union leader, Nicolae Dascălu, was sentenced in June to 18 months in prison for allegedly divulging state secrets to Amnesty International .
After personal discussions with Dascălu and other dissidents in Bucharest, Carl Gibson , Erwin Ludwig, Fenelon Sacerdoțeanu and 20 other people founded a regional department of the SLOMR in Timișoara. Gibson and Ludwig were arrested on April 4th for forming an anarchist organization and sentenced to six months in prison.
Another 153 union leaders, including Virgil Chender from Sighișoara , were arrested as " social parasites and rioters " and placed under house arrest, admitted to psychiatric clinics, deported, detained and, after serving their sentences, expelled from the country.
Some trade unionists were asked to sign statements denying the existence of the SLOMR.
At the same time, the authorities began a campaign of slander and sharp threats aimed at eradicating the union. Carl Gibson, who emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany immediately after his release from prison, became the spokesman for the SLOMR in the western world . Together with a group of Romanian dissidents from France and Switzerland, he informed the World Federation of Workers in Brussels and the International Labor Organization of the United Nations about the suppression of the free trade union movement and human rights violations in Romania. After the group's hearings, both organizations filed complaints with the government in Bucharest.
After the original leaders were arrested, others took over the organization of the union, but they were arrested a month later and the remaining members were subjected to constant harassment. In their final and ultimately successful attempt to destroy the union, the regime arrested several hundred union members simultaneously in all parts of the country. The government pretended not to have any knowledge of a new union in Romania.
See also
literature
- Carl Gibson : Un pas spre libertate. Sindicatul liber al oamenilor muncii din RS România. In: Presa Libera Română. March 1, 1981
- Carl Gibson: Resistance Movements Against the Ceausescu Dictatorship. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 15, 1988.
- Carl Gibson: Symphony of Freedom. Resistance to the Ceausescu dictatorship. Chronicle and testimony of a tragic human rights movement in literary sketches, essays, confessions and reflections. Röll, Dettelbach 2008, ISBN 978-3-89754-297-6 .
- Mariana Hausleitner : Political Resistance in Romania before 1989. In: Semi-annual publication for Southeast European history, literature and politics. Special edition opposition and repression in real socialism. 1996.
Web links
- Kulturraum-banat.de (PDF; 1.7 MB), Carl Gibson: The brief flashing of resistance - founding and breaking up of the first free trade union in Romania. In: Horch und Guck: Journal for the critical reappraisal of the SED dictatorship. Berlin, 2008, issue No. 3, p. 46 ff.
- istoriabanatului.wordpress.com , Mircea Rusnac: Istoria Banatului. SLOMR - Sindicatul Liber al Oamenilor Muncii din România (1979). Aspecte bănățene. February 21, 2010, in Romanian
Individual evidence
- ↑ gds.ong.ro ( Memento from February 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Sorin Ilieșu: Raport pentru condamnarea regimului politic comunist ca nelegitim si criminal , October 2005, in Romanian
- ↑ a b cotidianul.ro , Cotidianul, Andrei Luca Popescu: Un sindicat în ciuda lui Ceaușescu ( German A trade union despite Ceaușescu ), November 7, 2006, in Romanian
- ↑ a b c d Victor Frunză: Istoria stalinismului în România . Humanitas, 1990, ISBN 973-28-0177-8 , pp. 526 (Romanian).
- ↑ a b c d e f destinatii.liternet.ro , Dennis Deletant : Occidentul și disidența din România sub regimul lui Ceaușescu , ( German The West and Romanian Dissidents under the Ceaușescu Regime ), in Romanian
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Report 218/1982 ( Memento from August 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), 222/1983 ( Memento from August 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), 233/1984 , 236/1984 ( Memento from August 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) of the International Labor Organization
- ^ A b c d e Adrian Karatnycky, Alexander J. Motyl, Adolf Sturmthal : Workers 'rights, East and West: a comparative study of trade union and workers' rights in Western democracies and Eastern Europe . Transaction Publishers, 1980, ISBN 0-87855-867-5 , pp. 80 (English).
- ^ La Libre Belgique , Nicolette Frank: La Roumanie en accusation avant son congrès syndical , April 2, 1981, in French