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# polish blood
Poles give blood rather than strike in the UK
“They don’t want to be second-class citizens.”
POLISH PEOPLE IN the UK are taking action to show how much they contribute to Britain.
The BBC notes that the Polish Express, a free newspaper for Poles living in the UK, called for people to skip work today and protest outside Parliament.
Some 1,000 people signed up to attend, but very few showed up.
A more successful initiative was a separate campaign urging Poles to donate blood. About 2,500 people signed up to attend local clinics and the hashtag #PolishBlood is trending on Twitter.
Tomasz Kowalski, Polish Express’ editor, told Politico momentum for action started with a comment on an online article about Poles in the UK.
“One of our readers wrote ‘don’t complain, let’s do something’. In England, Poles are also citizens of united Europe, and maybe people feel that money is important but good feeling is important too. Maybe the strike idea is because they don’t want to be second-class citizens.”
Kowalski told the website about a Polish woman who was dismissed from her job at a fish factory in Scotland after breaking a ban on speaking languages other than English while at work.
There are 700,000 Polish people living in the UK. According to the Office of National Statistics, Poles are the second-largest immigrant group in Britain after Indians.
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