Marcel Szary passed away

Molly

marcel010

Marcel Szary, an activist of Workers' Initiative Trade Union in Cegielski factory, died today morning. He was also one of the founders of the union. It is a huge loss for the syndicalist and union movement in Poland.

Marcel Szary was an extraordinary union and worker activist. During the communist regime he was a member of underground “Solidarnosc” union, he joined it when he was still going to school. After 1989 he did not agree with the compromise politics of “Solidarnosc” and he gave up the membership in the union. In June 2004 he was one of the founders of the Workers' Initiative committee in Cegielski factory. He was a representative of the workers in the board of that factory. He was one of the most significant and active activists of WI. He was a friend of the anarchist movement, for which he became a symbol of workers' struggle.

We are going to remember Marcel as an uncompromising activist, who always put the interests of workers and the union members over his own. He was often repressed for his activity and in 2009 he was fined by the court in Poznan. We are going to remember his passionate speeches, his unbelievable sense of humor, the fact that he always offered a helping hand. When Workers' Initiative activists from Poznan were distributing leaflets in front of the factories in the area, we were sometimes called „the Marcel people”. Today, in the face of his death, we are sure that it was an honor to know him and fight for a better world with him, and we are proud of being called after him.

Marcel visited Rozbrat many times. He strongly supported our struggle and many of us had the luck to be his friends. Together we took part in countless rallies and demonstrations, where he was always on the front line, regardless of the consequences. Marcel was with us on the demonstration on the 9th of May where he made another beautiful speech, where he emphasized our long and fruitful cooperation. We were there together with Marcel and his comrades on the memorable demonstration in October 2009 in defense of the Cegielski fired workers. Unfortunately, Marcel couldn't be there with us on the demonstration on the 20th of March, but we were walking next to the hospital where was and we made a speech about his amazing struggle for workers' rights and loudly shouted his name – later we found out that all the people in the hospital could hear us, maybe even Marcel could have heard us...

In 2007 Marcel he was diagnosed with leukemia. Being ill, he was still struggling as a union activist. In December 2009 the doctors said the disease had reversed. Unfortunately, not for long. In late February 2010 he was back in the hospital, where in the last days of his passionate life, he got involved in the struggle in defence of the nurses of the hospital. Two weeks ago, his condition drastically worsened.

Marcel orphaned a 8-year-old son. This year he would have been 46 years old.