Primo Maggio 2016
Nel regime capitalistico non può esserci pace fra gli Stati
Che sia invece guerra fra le classi
La pace sociale che ammorba l’aria di questo primo maggio 2016 è solo il sottile strato di cenere che ricopre un fuoco pronto a divampare nuovamente.
Lunghi anni di crisi hanno visto i maggiori capitalismi nazionali, da quelli europei agli Stati Uniti, dal Giappone alla Russia, dal Brasile, al Sud Africa, ridurre la propria produzione in una recessione senza fine. Il proletariato e le classi medie si sono impoveriti e la disoccupazione aumenta. Anche la Cina, ormai seconda potenza economica mondiale, che pareva sfidare la crisi, mostra chiari i segni della stagnazione.
La crisi economica spinge i capitalisti in ogni Paese, con ogni tipo di governo, a premere sempre più per licenziare ed aumentare lo sfruttamento dei lavoratori, in difesa dei profitti.
Gli Stati borghesi, nonostante i loro bilanci in rosso, aumentano la spesa per gli armamenti e si preparano a contendersi con le armi zone d’influenza, mercati e materie prime da arraffare a prezzi sempre più bassi.
Questa pace è solo una tregua prossima a saltare sotto i colpi di un nuovo aggravarsi della crisi economica, che non potrà che divenire anche politica, sociale e militare.
In Medio Oriente la fragile tregua nei combattimenti raggiunta in Siria nasconde una situazione di tensione estrema che prepara un nuovo più esteso scontro tra gli Stati che si contendono quella disastrata regione. L’Europa orientale, con l’appoggio degli Stati Uniti, si riarma contro l’imperialismo russo. Nel Caucaso meridionale si riaccende lo scontro tra Azerbaigian ed Armenia, alimentato dal crescente antagonismo tra Turchia e Russia. Nel Mar Cinese meridionale s’inasprisce la contesa tra Pechino e gli Stati rivieraschi: il Giappone accelera il riarmo, lo stesso fa l’Australia, mentre gli Stati Uniti dichiarano apertamente di avere nella Cina il loro principale avversario economico e militare.
L’Europa dei borghesi, che sino a pochi anni fa vantava falsi ed ipocriti “Stati sociali”, “libertà”, “democrazie”, “accoglienza”, mentre opprime con la sua appena dissimulata dittatura la propria classe operaia, paga la Turchia perché si occupi di ricacciare indietro i profughi siriani in fuga in centinaia di migliaia dalle bombe, dalle stragi, dalla guerra, dalla fame provocate dall’azione criminale di tutti gli imperialismi, di Europa, di America, di Asia.
Il terrorismo, mascherato dietro pretesti religiosi, è in realtà il prodotto della guerra fra gli imperialismi ed è foraggiato e protetto dagli Stati grandi e piccoli e dai loro servizi segreti, sia per comodo mercenariato sia per spargere ovunque nel mondo i semi dell’odio, calcolato ennesimo strumento per predisporre i popoli a nuove guerre.
Sta alla classe operaia mondiale rispondere a questa sfida mortale, rovesciare il potere borghese e i suoi Stati, abolire i rapporti di produzione capitalistici, che sono il lavoro salariato e il capitale, per fare spazio alla gestione comunista della produzione e della distribuzione.
Le avvisaglie di tutto questo ci sono. In molti paesi del Nord e del Sud del mondo, di Occidente e di Oriente, la classe operaia dà prova della sua combattività per la difesa dei suoi obbiettivi di classe. I proletari, spesso soli e disorganizzati, ricercano la smarrita solidarietà e fratellanza tra sfruttati, al di sopra delle divisioni di nazionalità, di sesso, di religione, di razza.
Affinché queste lotte si affermino, si rafforzino e siano infine vittoriose è necessario che in ogni Paese i lavoratori si organizzino in veri sindacati di classe, indipendenti e nemici dei regimi e delle istituzioni dei padroni borghesi, decisi a non cedere di fronte alle lusinghe del riformismo opportunista e anche a resistere alla repressione.
È necessario che si rafforzi il partito rivoluzionario di classe, il Partito Comunista Internazionale, strumento indispensabile per dirigere la lotta fino alla presa del potere e all’instaurazione della dittatura proletaria, che sola può aprire la strada al Comunismo.
Dopo gli attentati di Parigi - Terrorismo borghese
No, non è una guerra. È la sua preparazione, mentre i grandi Stati di America, di Europa, di Russia e dell’Asia stanno già scaldando i motori. Sia il “terrorismo” sia la “guerra al terrorismo” rappresentano l’anticipo della guerra in arrivo.
Non è la guerra dello Stato Islamico contro l’Occidente. È la guerra degli imperialismi fra di loro. Se gli esecutori di questo ennesimo atto di terrore sono giovani portati al fanatismo, i mandanti si trovano nei palazzi del potere delle potenze statali di tutto il mondo.
Lo Stato Islamico non è espressione delle classi diseredate dei paesi arabi e non ne difende gli interessi. Nemmeno rappresenta la forza armata di borghesie nazionali arabe desiderose di affrancarsi dall’oppressione straniera, ex-coloniale o imperialista.
La sua forza sta in chi lo dirige dall’esterno. Sono truppe mercenarie cui fa comodo nascondere il loro mestiere dietro le fumisterie della religione. I loro finanziatori diretti sono alcune delle petro-monarchie del Golfo, in lotta fra di loro, e discreto protettore è il fronte imperialista attualmente dietro agli Usa, che li arma e li fa combattere, o li combatte, secondo i colossali interessi di tutti i capitalismi, strangolati dalla crisi economica della quale non vedono la fine.
La propaganda borghese capovolge la verità: nei paesi arabi la finta rivoluzione islamica nasconde dietro una profonda coltre ideologica solo la reazione delle classi dominanti, borghesi e fondiarie, e le sue prime vittime sono i proletari di quei paesi. Le quotidiane bombe nelle piazze e nei mercati di Baghdad, Aleppo, Islamabad, Beirut, Damasco, Kabul, Tripoli, Istanbul hanno segno antiproletario e di guerra fra bande borghesi.
I comunisti non danno un giudizio morale della guerra e delle sue atrocità e sanno che la violenza è connaturata alle società di classe, fondate esclusivamente sulla forza di dominio e sul terrore, anche quando non c’è bisogno di impiegarlo e basta la minaccia. Il terrorismo è uno strumento di guerra, che può essere usato fra gli Stati come fra le classi. Questo è terrorismo usato da alcuni Stati borghesi contro altri. E di tutti contro la classe operaia internazionale, per dividerla secondo artificiali barriere ideologiche e per impedire che unita possa rialzare la testa. Lo “stragismo” lo conosciamo fin troppo bene. Sono avvertimenti e segnali che quasi da mezzo secolo, anche in Europa, periodicamente le borghesie ritengono utile lanciarsi a vicenda. Incisi ovviamente sulla pelle dei proletari.
Qualche centinaio di morti non sono niente per la mostruosa società del capitale. Il dio del profitto richiede ben altri sacrifici umani. Il militarismo è l’unico vero volto della società del Capitale, in particolare delle imperialiste democrazie occidentali che parlano di pace ma stanno preparando il nuovo macello mondiale. Una guerra, costruita, alimentata e voluta per la sopravvivenza del Capitale, a costo di milioni di vite proletarie.
Le classi dominanti approfittano di ogni pretesto e di ogni emozione popolare per sottomettere alla loro disciplina la classe operaia, per terrorizzarla, stringerla fra la minaccia della violenza straniera e quella che la borghesia esercita direttamente, e sempre più rafforza.
I comunisti quindi si tengono lontano da ogni condanna astratta della violenza, da ogni avvicinamento alla falsa pietà ed indignazione dei borghesi, e da ogni manifestazione di solidarietà con gli Stati e con i borghesi, prima di tutti quelli dei loro paesi.
La prolungata agonia della società del capitale scatenerà una serie inimmaginabile di orrori e di menzogne, ben oltre quelli della prima e della seconda guerra mondiale. A questi la classe operaia, e prima di essa il suo partito comunista, devono essere preparati per mantenere inflessibile, contro tutti e contro tutto, la linea diritta, prima verso le verità della scienza di classe, poi, sola, nell’azione contro tutti i nemici.
Il capitalismo non morirà se non di morte violenta per mano del proletariato comunista. L’unica “guerra al terrorismo” possibile è quella contro questo barbaro sistema sociale, quindi l’unica che ha per scopo finale la rivoluzione comunista.
Chi invece accetta il capitalismo, in ogni sua forma e in ogni sua mascheratura, è costretto ad accettare i suoi terrorismi oggi e sarà costretto domani a subire la sua guerra.
Unità di lotta della classe operaia
Un testo del partito ai lavoratori americani
I governi di tutte le Americhe, da Washington a Buenos Aires, così come in tutti i continenti, sollevano le bandiere del patriottismo e mobilitano i lavoratori in difesa della patria.
In alcuni casi si tratta di dispute territoriali fra Stati borghesi, dietro i quali si nasconde la lotta fra gli interessi delle lobby capitaliste nazionali e delle multinazionali, o per l’accesso alle materie prime, o per il controllo di teatri strategici per le operazioni militari, o di corridoi per il transito delle merci.
In altre occasioni gli slogan patriottici si levano quando è minacciato il buon funzionamento dell’economia nazionale, il suo tasso di profitto e le rendite, sempre parte del plusvalore ottenuto dallo sfruttamento dei lavoratori salariati.
Questi ultimi, però, non trarranno alcun beneficio né da eventuali nuovi territori “irredenti” al paese né del buon andamento dell’economia nazionale. Sempre la lotta per la difesa della patria va solo a vantaggio delle imprese capitalistiche.
I lavoratori non otterranno miglioramenti dalle dispute fra Venezuela e Guyana o fra Venezuela e Colombia. Tanto meno migliorerà la condizione dei lavoratori boliviani con il recupero dello sbocco al mare nel Corridoio di Atacama, oggi inglobato nel Cile. Ugualmente non ci sarà alcun cambiamento nello sfruttamento dei lavoratori qualora l’Argentina recuperasse la sovranità nazionale sulle isole Malvinas.
E così è anche negli infiniti casi di dispute territoriali in tutto il mondo. Per il proletariato non fa differenza se il controllo e lo sfruttamento delle materie prime, del petrolio o del gas, del rame o del ferro, ecc., sia degli Stati nazionali borghesi o concesso a consorzi imperialisti. In ogni caso il capitalismo ricerca solo ed esclusivamente il perseguimento del massimo profitto, a cominciare dallo sfruttamento della forza lavoro.
I salariati, come sono espropriati della ricchezza che è prodotta dal proprio lavoro impiegato all’interno dei confini del loro paese, lo saranno ugualmente fossero occupati in territori annessi o riappropriati da parte del loro Stato nazionale borghese.
Anche la proprietà della terra acquisita passerà, tramite lo Stato nazionale, alla classe dei proprietari fondiari.
Per contro, i governi borghesi, mentre sbraitano sulla difesa della patria, nello stesso tempo firmano accordi con le multinazionali per fare affari, passando sopra quella “sovranità nazionale” che dicono di difendere.
I lavoratori in tutto il mondo devono ignorare gli appelli dei borghesi, dei piccolo borghesi, dei loro politicanti e sindacalisti, ad allinearsi in difesa della patria e dell’economia nazionale perché questo significa solo difendere gli interessi e gli affari dei capitalisti.
Nemmeno ci può essere una “patria socialista”. Tutti i ciarlatani di ieri e di oggi che si appellano ad una simile “patria” di fatto vi nascondono dietro nient’altro che il nazionalismo borghese e la continuità del capitale, il tutto sotto un travestimento sinistroide ed opportunista al fine di mantenere i lavoratori alla coda della borghesia, ingannandoli con la menzogna di un falso socialismo o di un avviamento verso di esso.
La classe operaia non ha niente da aspettarsi dall’unità nazionale fra proletari e borghesi, fra sfruttati e sfruttatori. Questa strada non conduce né alla rivoluzione né alla rottura con il capitalismo. Questa strada va solo verso il supersfruttamento della classe operaia.
Mentre la borghesia, i politici e i sindacalisti che le reggono il gioco chiamano i lavoratori a “denunciare gli speculatori” e a battersi contro l’aumento dei prezzi dei beni e dei servizi di prima necessità, il movimento operaio classista, unito e organizzato dalla base, deve alzare la bandiera internazionale della lotta per migliori condizioni di vita e di lavoro, per l’aumento dei salari, per la riduzione della giornata lavorativa, per il salario ai disoccupati, per la riduzione dell’età pensionabile, contro l’allungamento della giornata di lavoro, gli straordinari ecc. E quando i servitori della borghesia alzeranno la voce contro i lavoratori che starebbero attentando all’economia nazionale e alla patria, la risposta del movimento operaio deve essere: I proletari non hanno patria! Non possiamo e non siamo interessati a difendere ciò che non abbiamo!
Lo sciopero generale sarà espressione dell’unità d’azione della classe operaia, della rottura con i sindacati di regime e della nascita di veri sindacati di classe, dove i lavoratori si possono inquadrare senza discriminazioni di nazionalità, professione, razza, religione o fede politica. Lo sciopero deve coinvolgere i lavoratori delle diverse imprese, uniti dietro ad una unica piattaforma rivendicativa.
Il proletariato è l’unica classe rivoluzionaria, è chiamata a rovesciare il capitalismo per far posto a una società senza sfruttatori e sfruttati, senza confini nazionali, senza merci né lavoro salariato. Con la conquista del potere politico il proletariato instaurerà la sua dittatura, la dittatura del proletariato, del partito comunista internazionale, che potrà mettere in pratica il suo programma, il programma del comunismo.
L’appello dei comunisti rivoluzionari è all’unità di azione nelle lotte rivendicative dei lavoratori a livello locale, nazionale e internazionale, su questi principi:
1. Rifiuto delle guerre imperialiste, senza allinearsi con nessuno degli Stati in lotta, rivendicando il disfattismo rivoluzionario e lo scontro con il governo e il padronato in ogni paese.
2. Rifiuto degli appelli alla difesa della patria e a schierarsi nelle dispute territoriali fra Stati, che giudica riflesso dei conflitti inter-borghesi per il controllo delle materie prime e delle quote di mercato.
3. Contro la repressione e l’intimidazione governativa delle lotte rivendicative dei salariati con l’argomento che le proteste operaie farebbero parte di supposte cospirazioni “antinazionali”, “imperialiste” o “terroriste”.
4. Riprendere lo sciopero e la mobilitazione come forme principali di lotta, senza limiti, senza servizi minimi, coinvolgendo lavoratori dei diversi settori e rami di attività. Organizzare casse di sciopero per sostenere la propaganda e soddisfare le necessità che si presentano al movimento di lotta.
Unità di azione contro lo sfruttamento capitalista in tutto il mondo!
No “Christmas truce” for the struggles of the SI Cobas - Against police and Confederates
The vast majority of the workers organized in the SI Cobas are employed in the logistics sector, more precisely in the warehouses as porters, pickers, etc. The SI Cobas, not without encountering considerable difficulties, has also started to organize drivers, still within the logistics sector, including both van drivers, who deliver a reduced number of orders over a short distance, and long-distance lorry drivers. Outside the logistics sector the SI Cobas has recently started to engage in a campaign of recruitment and organization of struggles, with some degreeof success, in the slaughterhouses.
For the full implementation of the contract in the food-industry the struggles began at dawn on December 21, with pickets blocking the transport entrance, more than 100 workers at Alcar Uno of Castelnuovo Rangone and 50 workers of Globalcarni Spilamberto, which are meat-processing plants in the province of Modena. After several hours of blockading the workers have moved to the city Prefecture where a mediation to a union truce was obtained, in view of a meeting on 13 January.
The workers of GLS of Montale (Piacenza) were in the lead of the strikes in the main plants of the firm in Italy, which led to a national accord and to similar agreements in TNT, Bartolini and SDA.
The GLS, however, thought it possible to go on the offensive.
In view of the last general strike organized in the logistics sector in October 29 last year, three out of the four delegates of SI Cobas passed over to the CGIL and with them most of the members, which left 25 workers of SI Cobas out of 125. The strike, successful on a national level, went badly in this warehouse, with the CGIL operating by strike-breaking, as across the rest of Italy.
The SI Cobas of Piacenza reacted promptly, first by organizing a meeting on November 4 in front of the workplace and then in other regional headquarters of the union. Following the suspension “for disciplinary reasons” of the only delegate of SI Cobas, on December 8 a strike was organized, backed by a one-hour stoppage in warehouses throughout Italy. After 5 hours of blockading of in and out movements the company cancelled the suspension. The success of this strike brought back a good number of workers to SI Cobas, bringing membership up to 52.
The result of the general strike of 29 October, and of the whole of the previous protest movement, was meeting with the bosses on November 18 in Bologna, in the SI Cobas headquarters, which for the first time involved three of the leading companies of the industry – Bartolini, GLS and TNT – and FEDIT, the main syndicate of the industrialists of this category, an important fact as de facto recognition by the bosses for SI Cobas. The fact must be given its due weight, and recognition cannot become the pivot of trade union action, because only the maintenance of the force which achieved it, or rather its growth, guarantees its real bargaining power.
Subsequent events confirm that the bosses, while they seem to want to come to terms with the union, will use every means to break its strength. During the night of 22/3 eight members of the CGIL of Piacenza GLS warehouse violently attacked four militants of SI Cobas. The first attack took place against two workers in the canteen, then against two others who were working in isolated locations. All four were hospitalized, one was in a coma for several hours. In protest eighty workers have immediately abandoned the warehouse and have been on strike for a few hours. Then, by assembly decision, having the company said they would punish the attackers, who were then all fired, have gone back to work.
As mentioned, the assailants were all members of the CGIL, which has not made any condemnation of the incidents. Worse, we recall, in fact did the Filt Cgil Lazio, which in a statement had defended, justifying the actions, its members who attacked the striking workers of SI Cobas on May 19 last year in the warehouse of SDA Roma 1. As for base unions, only the CUB has expressed its solidarity with the workers and with the SI Cobas. Others have not deemed it necessary to say anything about such an evidently grave episode.
Also in Rome SI Cobas has managed to mobilize a number of workers taking part in pickets, moving in a very large area, from Fiano to Santa Palomba or to Tiburtina, a distance of over 80 km.
At the Carrefour warehouse in Santa Palomba, on the Via Ardeatina, in July 30 of the 45 employees of the Euro Progea consortium went on strike about wage payments, after yet another delay in being paid, demanding the opening of talks on poor working conditions: working 12-hour shifts in cold stores and paid just 50 Euros. The instructions on the movement of parcels are given to porters through headsets, which cause headaches, while the company does not even provide proper clothing and protective equipment, which porters end up bringing from home. Also they denounced unpaid working hours and sick leaves, poor family allowances and seniority.
A new mobilization took place there on December 23 when management denied the extension of contracts of a group of seven workers whose fixed-term contract had expired. The SI Cobas organized three blockades of the movement of warehouse goods. The first on the evening of the 23rd for three hours; the second, on the night of 28th, for five hours; and the third, which was the largest, involving about sixty workers, on 15th January. Our comrades were also present.
On the morning of Dec. 23rd a strike began at Bormioli Rocco of Fidenza (Parma) for retaining all of the jobs and salary levels, when the contract of the cooperative working in the plant changed. Here too pickets blockaded goods entrances. The strike continued to the bitter end, with the pickets holding firm day and night, despite the cold and the holidays. On December 30th, the company announced that it had reached an agreement with Cgil and Cisl but the majority of the porters rejected this, because this agreed contract was much worse. This showed an exemplary determination and a spirit of sacrifice. The agreement signed by the confederations included keeping only 50 permanent contract workers in the workplace but not those with fixed-term contracts which expired at the end of the year and in March; it would not guarantee the salary levels, nor the continuation of work in that warehouse, opening the way for possible transfers.
At the stroke of 4 o’clock in the morning of January 5 the porters of the contracted cooperative Associate Services at the Penny Market Warehouse of Desenzano del Garda, the most important of this chain in Italy, went on strike to obtain the proper work routines, seniority and the implementation of the national contract. The strike and picketing continued to the bitter end. At an unsuccessful meeting at the Prefecture of Brescia, it was proposed to demobilize workers in exchange for a meeting after two weeks.
On Friday 8, in front of pickets in Fidenza and Desenzano numerous squads of police were deployed. Despite the picketing being robust and tenacious, they eventually had to give way. In the morning they were cleared in Desenzano. Some Pakistani porters, when they were attacked, shouted “Allah Akbar”, God is great. The bourgeois press took the opportunity to describe the picket as being promoted by Islamic extremists. The Regional Councillor for Civil Protection declared that “we must return these extremists in Pakistan straight away.” The goal of the Bourgeois is to isolate Pakistani workers from Italian workers, who must not see this strike as an example of real struggle.
The following day the workers returned to work and found the warehouse closed tight, with goods diverted to the base in Arborio (Vercelli).
At Bormioli the political police even proposed, under the threat of use of force, the agreement of the confederates. The refusal led to blows and resistance by the workers. One by one they are removed from the picket line, and placed in armoured vehicles. About 40 workers were taken to a police station, and detained there for eight hours then being released with charges of resisting a public officer and civil violence. But they would not bow their heads because on the Saturday night there was a march through the centre of Fidenza, shouting “Bormioli Rocco, tomorrow another blockade” and on Monday morning they returned to picketing the company. After eleven hours there was a new intervention with four armoured police vehicles and carabinieri. The next morning also this plant remained closed by a lockout.
In response to the lockout of Desenzano, on Wednesday 13, at 4 am, the SI Cobas mounted a picket line of about eighty workers at the Penny Market warehouse in Arborio (Vercelli). In addition to the porters of Desenzano there are workers and militants of SI Cobas of Brescia, Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Turin and Genoa, including a group of drivers already on strike, working for a company which operates within the warehouse; these were all of different nationalities: Italian, Pakistani, Romanians, Poles, Moroccans, Senegalese. Workers from many countries, united by a common goal – the struggle against exploitation – from which country does not matter. The workers who work in the warehouse, none of whom were enrolled in SI Cobas, did not resent the picket line, which was total, and some workers stopped to talk to pickets before entering work. The external yard was filled with trucks. The Penny Market in Italy has six logistics warehouses, two of which, being the most important, are now closed down, one by the bosses lock-out, the other by the workers. In the early afternoon, the company agreed to meet a delegation of SI Cobas. At five, after thirteen hours, the blockade was terminated with an agreement that committed Penny Market and cooperative to reopen, within ten days, the warehouse of Desenzano, with the return of workers, and the start of negotiations on the implementation of the national contract.
Two days later, on Friday 15, the porters went on strike at ND Logistics and DHL of Settala (Milan), at ND Pontenure (Piacenza) and a new blockade was established in front of the factory of Bormioli, Fidenza. In the early afternoon, having ended the strike at ND, part of the workers of Pontenure warehouse, along with a group of workers in Desenzano who had come out to support them, would go to strengthen the blockade at Bormioli. Towards the evening, two contingents, one of police and the other of carabinieri, assaulted the workers, this time not merely to evict the pickets – the fourth in a week – but with a frontal charge, batons in hand, chasing them up the traffic ring road and then lined up inside the factory gates.
Not even this more brutal use of bourgeois state force did impede the SI Cobas and workers. The same evening the workers paraded again in procession through the centre of Fidenza. The next morning, Saturday, as we were concluding this article, a new picket was deployed in front of the factory, reinforced by workers of Desenzano, Brescia, Milan, Piacenza and Bologna. Meanwhile in Milan the workers go on strike in Ortofin of Trucazzano, Settala and Liscate.
Perhaps the government, i.e., the bourgeoisie, has decided to break the labour movement in logistics sector and its union, the SI Cobas, by hook or by crook, before it expands beyond the limits of this sector, infecting other categories and organizing the working class. But are they finding this a tough nut to crack, and we hope that this is the case, and operate so that they end up with broken teeth.
One thing is certain: when workers go down the road of struggle, with real strikes, to the bitter end, with pickets blockading goods and scabs, the bourgeois regime slips away democratic mask and shows its true face, that of the dictatorship of capital on the working class.
Airbus Production moved to USA
Airbus’ new American facility is is expected to open early in 2016. Airbus has moved into the North American commercial airliner market looking to match Boeing’s market share. The new facility will allow Airbus to assemble the European made component parts into aircraft for the North American market, currently the world’s largest.
By locating final production in the US, Airbus also obtains an opportunity to market military products to the US government and Space Program which have preference for buying US made products. A report in the Seattle Times newspaper states:
It’s an aggressive move, considering the European plane-maker controls only about 20 percent of the U.S. market. That share will reach 40 percent as soon as carriers including American Airlines take delivery of Airbus planes on order.
Bregier’s team has set its sights on grabbing half a U.S. market that has traditionally favoured the home player, even as the two manufacturers share the global market 50/50. “We are a large aerospace company, and should the situation arise where we have something competitive to offer the U.S. Air Force, for instance, this would certainly be a site where we’d consider doing something,” Enders said in a televised interview.
Break the workers
Airbus has located its new facility in the gulf coast port of Mobile in the southern state of Alabama. Alabama is a “right to work” State where laws encourage workers not to join unions. But Alabama is far from the worst of the Southern states for union membership
“Union members are 10.8 percent of [Alabama’s] workforce, federal statistics show, compared with 2.2 percent in South Carolina and 16.8 percent in Washington State, where rival Boeing Co has Jetliner factories. Boeing’s South Carolina plant is not unionized.”
Business news site “Bloomberg News” states: «By locating its plant in low-cost, union-unfriendly Alabama, Airbus “puts pressure on trade unions back in Europe,” aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafi told Agency France-Presse. Boeing’s factory in South Carolina, which recently a unionization drive, serves a similar function relative to the company’s unionized plants around Seattle. Hourly pay for durable-goods-manufacturing workers for all U.S. nonfarm workers for the first time on record last November. Aircraft production workers have been a holdout, with an average hourly wage of $37.90 in June, but that could change».
Trade Unions at breaking point
The major union for airplane construction is the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). IAM was founded in 1888 and has around 700,000 members in Canada and the United States, 333,000 who are currently working in the industry. A member of the only national union structure, the AFL-CIO, IAM leadership runs the union as a “business partner” with the employers. For the aerospace companies IAM will lobby US Congress for lucrative military contracts. To get an idea of their class collaborationist policies here is the president of IAM appealing to the management of Airbus: «We tell (Airbus) that we are the leading aerospace union in the North America and we would like to get off on the right foot and organize their workers,” Buffenbarger said. “We can bring order in the workplace: We are a union with a demonstrated history of trying to work out problems and to create an efficient operation, just as Boeing became more proficient because of its skilled workforce. We can help make them successful, or we can have a knock-down, drag-out fight».
Like most US unions IAM signs contracts with no-strike clauses. However in between IAM will strike to protect its members’ interests, the last time against Boeing in 2008:
On Saturday, Nov. 1, 2008, members of the union ratified the contract, ending the eight-week strike. The new contract was approved by 74 percent of those voting in favor. This was the longest strike against Boeing by this union since 1995, and the fourth in twenty years. The strike cost the union members an average of $7000.00 in base pay and cost the company $100 million per day in revenue and penalties with a postponement of the delivery of aircraft. Boeing has a $350 billion backlog.
Members Trying to Take Back the IAM?
Until 2015, the IAM had no contested elections for national leadership in 50 years and President for 110 years.
After the IAM International union forced a concessionary contract on the Washington State centred Boeing workers, a campaign to reform IAM campaign formed around a worker’s Facebook group. The social-democratic union reform magazine “Labor Notes” reports: «The current reform effort is based on a program to 1) eliminate nepotism 2) lower spending e.g. a Lear Jet for international officers and lower salaries ($304,000 in total compensation for President Thomas Buffenbarger), and the numbers of international officers».
Reform candidates received about 1⁄3 of the votes in that historic contested IAM Presidential election. There doesn’t appear to be any other organized opposition.
Back to the Basics
These efforts of a handful of rank and file members to take on a well entrenched union oligarchy are applauded. However, the group will need to take on and fight concessions as well as how to organize in the southern states and elsewhere. They are fighting deeply ingrained class collaborationist organizational and educational institutions that undermine the union.
The ideological weaknesses of being willing to work with the employers will take more than a change of leadership to root out. It takes an active, educated and fighting rank and file base. The International Communist Party offers IAM members an understanding of capitalism and experience in rank and file struggle that will aid in that effort.
Democratic Tunisia can’t stop the revolt of the unemployed
In the eighties, the Bourguiba government, following the IMF’s directions, had bet on the development of tourism and exports, neglecting the inner regions. For this reason, following the rise of grain prices, the city was in the vanguard of the 1984 bread riots, during which 184 proletarians were killed. But the region continued to be ignored during the next two decades of the Ben Ali government.
During the 30 day so-called Jasmine Revolution of 2011, Kasserine, a city of west-central Tunisia, has paid its tribute in blood. More than 50 people in Kasserine died from government snipers positioned on rooftops. The crimes committed in Kasserine by the former regime were never fully acknowledged by the new democratic order, which fuelled the distrust of the population.
On January 12th, high school students staged a revolt and set their school on fire. On the anniversary of the so-called Tunisian revolution, January 14th, a 28 year old recent graduate, Ridha Yahyaoui, during a youth organization protest against their exclusion from a public competition, climbed on a light pole where he was electrocuted, dying two days later.
The masses were moved by against the Ben Ali regime in 2010 by a suicide and another tragic event dragged tens of thousands of proletarians into the streets against an equally ruthless class regime, now cloaked by democracy. At dawn, on January 17th, 500 unemployed young people threw stones at the headquarters of the governorate1 of Kasserine kicking off a new revolt. Police responded with tear gas, but an impressive demonstration passed through the streets of the city gathering thousands of young proletarians and fighting off the attacks of the gendarmerie. Within a few hours the revolt had already spread to the nearby cities of Zouhour and Ennour.
The terrorist methods of the Ben Ali regime continue to be used by the new democratic government against those who fighting to improve their conditions. In prisons and barracks, the National Guard gendarmerie continues to torture systematically. Terror remains the only means available to a bourgeoisie incapable of satisfying the essential needs of the lower classes. Tunisian proletarians have quickly learned the illusory nature of the democratic solution to their problems and are now conscious of the true content of the new constitutional freedoms.
The uprising spread across the country and thousands of young workers came into open conflict with the police in Sfax, Siliana, Mdhilla, Meknassi, Tahla, Fernana, Meknassi, Beja, Jendouba, Sidi Bouzid, Kebilli and Redeyeff. Just two days after the death of Ridha Yahyaoui, 14 of the 24 governorates of Tunisia were engulfed by the revolt. On January 18, a small march also reached the capital.
Meanwhile, the base unions announced a three day strike in the hospital in the town of Ben Arous.
On the fifth day of clashes in Kasserine, January 19, a 6 pm to 5 am curfew was decreed. Clashes across the country occurred on the evening of January 20th and the official report of the Ministry of the Interior details one death and 80 serious injuries among the police.
On the same day the headquarters of the governorate of Tunis was occupied by the UGET student union, which demanded a job for every family. In Carthage, clashes occurred within a few hundred meters of the presidential palace and at night broke out in several suburbs. In almost all of the governorates public offices are closed for security reasons.
On January 20th, there are also riots in the cities of Tozeur, Medenine, Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, Kairouan, Sfax and Enfidha.
In Kebili, between 20 and 21 January crowds set fire to National Guard offices and, according to reports from a local radio station, police and gendarmerie2 withdrew from the city. The army had to intervene directly to restore order. On 23 and 24 January more minor outbreaks occurred.
The situation is settling down. The Tunisian government eased the curfew, now imposed from 10 pm to 5 pm. Thala, in the governorate of Kasserine, was one of the last towns brought back to order, where there had been major clashes up to January 30th, only then were all the police headquarters returned to State control.
But the fact that the violence has ended does not mean that social peace has returned.
Against Imams, State Unions and Stalinists
In Muslim-majority countries, the Islamist movement has organized and mobilized the masses, starting from the mosques. We saw this during the crisis in Algeria in the early nineties and during the Egyptian revolt against the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Nothing similar has happened in Tunisia, where there was no link between the insurgency and Islamists. And there are no reported episodes in which they are able to dominate the public squares.
In January 2016, in an attempt to recover its members’ confidence and to confuse and divide the proletariat, the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) called a general strike in the governorates of Greater Tunis. The “struggle” was quickly resolved with an agreement with the Employers Association – the Tunisian Union of Industry, Commerce and Handicrafts for a 6% wage increase of in the private sector. But the negotiation had been underlay in December, so it was only formalized an agreement already made.
During the revolt, the UGTT also asked its members to defend government office buildings threatened by “anarchists, thugs and thieves”, it opposed itself against the young unemployed and asked union members to not join in the events threatening the “democratic freedoms of the revolution”.
On January 4th, the UGTT called for a general strike in Education for the 27th of the month: this strike was called off along with a general strike of cultural workers. Even a three day general strike of fuel transport workers, scheduled for the 21st through 23rd of January was cancelled. It was a betrayal of the working class in the name of bourgeois national interest.
In Enfidha, following clashes on January 20, the UGTT has declared a regional general strike for January 26; although on the 25th the union tried to delay the beginning of the strike, facing the prompt response of the city’s proletariat who marched on the headquarters of the union and battled with police until evening. Also in Enfidha on January 26th, the UGTT cancelled a planned strike at the airport, explaining that the revocation was to encourage a “peaceful climate” with the Turkish company that manages the structure as well with the Ministry of Transport.
Some of the right-wing opposition parties have accused the Popular Front, a counter-revolutionary coalition of Social Democrats and Stalinist hacks, of having sent provocateurs among the unemployed. But the Tunisian bourgeoisie knows that the Popular Front is not an enemy. It functions only as a transmission belt between the bourgeoisie and the unemployed movement. Popular Front MP’s were committed to continue the negotiations with the Government, as the official mouthpiece of the Association of Tunisian Managers has defended it’s work for having always been “against any kind of infiltration of criminals, anarchists or any sort of reactionary elements who tried to infiltrate the social movement to push it way from its noble goals”. In addition, the Popular Front “has never ceased to defend the state’s structures and has always rejected bringing down the government”, to the point it was even received by Tunisian President for consultations. It is completely part of the “constructive opposition” to the government and as such, useful to the bourgeoisie in order to maintain the social order.
The proletarian movement must beware of these false friends who are even more dangerous than its avowed enemies. It must seek its political independence from the bourgeoisie and opportunists by giving itself a real class trade union, independent from the state and the employers. Its most combative and resolute elements will identify with the tradition of revolutionary internationalist communism, the International Communist Party. Only then can we challenge capitalism, its poverty and bourgeois terror.
The Independent Trade Unions
Since the January revolt, the unemployed youth movement has started to develop connections with the grassroots unions.
On January 29th a general strike was organized in Sfax, which was strongly supported by the working class in response to the call for action of the unemployed movement demonstrating the possibility of an alliance between employed and unemployed, a prerequisite the class struggle in Tunisia.
On February 1, the base unions called a general strike in the cities of Al Ayoun, Bel Abbes, Feriana and Jedlian in the governorate of Kasserine. On February 2nd, workers from the nearby town of Sebiba responded to the grassroots unions and the unemployed youth movement protests. Local Teacher and Construction trade unions also joined in strikes.
On 4 February, the unemployed movement in the governorate of Al Gafsa announced that it was organizing a march to the border with Algeria.
The same day kindergarten workers of the governorate of Nabeul went on strike, factory workers in Le Kef struck to defend their salaries, as did the hospital workers of Kasserine. Dock workers at the port of Rades in STAM (port of Tunis) began a two-day strike, considered illegal by the Ministry of Transport as well.
On February 8, the UGTT with the support of local unions declared a general strike in Enfidha which declared a 100% participation rate for both the public and the private sectors.
On the same day in Kalaat el Andalus sailors went on strike to demand the reopening of the port and the strike found support with area resort workers. All roads leading to the town were blocked with barricades of burning tires.
On February 14th, the town of Le Kef was drawn into a general strike to the bitter end and was completely blocked. On February 17th, the city was still on strike. Also on February 14th municipal workers in the governorate of Nabeul proclaimed a three-day strike for wage claims.
All these general strikes called by the grassroots organizations at the city level, together with the unemployed movement, demanded that their region be recognized as economically depressed by the Central Government, so it can access special government support funds.
This movement certainly can’t resolve the crisis in these regions. The mosaic of base unions which are often only locally influential isn’t unified enough to organize the Tunisian proletariat for a generalized class against class struggle. Yet these struggles pave the way for all these weak and small economic struggle organizations, to grow and unify in one united union capable of mobilizing the proletariat in an open war against the bourgeoisie on a national scale.
Palestine - Proletarians against bourgeois
The average salary of a teacher living in the Palestinian Authority governed section of the occupied territories is €700. Average monthly expenses for a working-class family is €1,200.
On February 9th, those teachers went on strike claiming compliance with a 2013 agreement with the Palestinian government promising wage increases, improved pensions and adaptation of seniority.
For weeks most of the schools of the Territories remained closed, while other facilities have remained open for very limited hours. Various demonstrations were held in the West Bank cities, the largest in Ramallah, where the processions have reached twenty thousand demonstrators.
Mirroring the Israeli army’s methods, Palestinian Authority security forces have erected numerous roadblocks preventing buses carrying the strikers from reaching the city. Workers were IDed, threatened and arrested. Taxi drivers who transported striking teachers in Ramallah have been threatened with loss of their licenses.
In numerous countries loudspeakers of mosques call on workers to stop the strikes. Everywhere nationalism – even that of oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians or the Kurds – and religion are weapons of the bourgeoisie against the working class. The real oppressed are the workers and the true oppressors the bourgeoisie, around the world, even those who, for now, are not recognized the right to have their own state by the international council of the large and small imperialist robbers, to make better use of the local workforce.
On February 16, the Palestinian police arrested 22 teachers and union leaders who had spoken in favor of the strike. The crackdown caused an opposite effect to those desired by the local bourgeois regime, causing other workers to join the struggle and strengthened the strike, which has become to the bitter end and upped the strike demands for increased wages from the initial 2.5% to 10%.
In Palestine even teachers have run into the official union as an obstacle, and were forced to organize themselves in a “teachers coordinating committee”. The regime union in education, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, was overtly challenged by strikers, who demanded the resignation of the general secretary and the election of new delegates.
The Palestinian teachers are an excellent example for all the region’s workers showing that your own bourgeois government is the primary enemy to organize and fight against. Only through a workers union of the whole area, breaking with nationalism, even the Palestinian proletarians can alleviate their suffering, fighting alongside their class comrades of all colours and nationalities against the international bourgeoisie who for decades have had them fighting for a nationalism that is not theirs and will never be.