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A dossier of weekly information published by the ------ INTRODUCTION: This week we publish further contributions presented at the Conference of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples in Geneva on June 11, 2006 by Gaston Azoua (Benin) and Roberto Giarocco (Belgium) and Djibrine Assali Hamdallah (Tchad). Alan Benjamin, San Francisco labor activist, writes about Andy Stern, leader of "Change to Win", a coalition of trade unions that separated from the AFL-CIO. Stern positions himself in a "partnership with corporations" in the debate on the "reform on immigration" and the creation of "universal health care coverage." From Russia we have an interview with Macha, member of the socialist movement Vperiod ("Forward!") who explains the contents of the law on privatization of schools. From Latvia, we have received a letter that explains the privatization of the sugar industry imposed by the European Union. Subscribe to the ILC International Newsletter ----- TABLE OF CONTENTS: Pg. 1: Introduction ------ Subscriptions: To subscribe : ******************** INTERNATIONAL LIAISON COMMITTEE OF WORKERS AND PEOPLES 13TH CONFERENCE IN DEFENSE OF THE ILO CONVENTIONS AND TRADE UNION INDEPENDENCE Gaston Azoua (Benin) I am the secretary general of the General Confederation of Workers of Benin (CGTB). For over ten years I have been present at the international meetings in defense of ILO conventions and I would simply like to offer examples on how this plays out in my country. The Labor Code was created during a period of general euphoria, when we were emerging from an autocracy founded on a pseudo-revolution during the eighties. Actually, there were no trade unions. The measures of these laws were made to measure and only offered a minimum to the workers in order to give them a democratic aura. Today we are fighting for survival because unemployment is very high and there is a counter-updating of public employment. For example, in education, over half the teachers are on contract and there are teachers with a different status such as 'communitarian' teacher. Those on contract depend on the state and their contracts can be terminated at any time. The 'communitarian' teachers depend on the school budget. This means that in a same school complex, two teachers can have different wages, with a contribution rate higher in group A than in group B. In other words, the state budget is being liquidated and the expenses are falling on the parents of the students. The same occurs in regard to health care. There are health agents that depend on 'social measures', which is to say that they are paid through the health care center, and there are also 'communitarian' agents. Therefore there are several statuses in the liquidation of the ILO Conventions. Even in the heart of public administration there are employees who depend on the PIP (public investment program) who do not earn even the minimum wage, that is to say less than 39 Euros a month (around 200 French francs). Today, the problem is how to work for the application of the ILO Conventions. Then there is the question of freedoms. We have fought constantly in regard to the eight fundamental conventions in order to settle the application of other conventions-- Conventions 98 and 97, the convention on child labor, as well as the question on payment of wages. The negotiations have not been discussed but we debate this in order to make us believe that democracy is on the go. I can confirm today, that after we talked about the defense of conventions, the international financial capital developed an offensive against the conventions via structures, laws and the Labor Code. This form of offensive has passed into the practical phase which is the destabilization of all structures. A law establishing a ceiling for wages was voted for in my country but has not been applied because of the fight among the trade unions. Today we are told to regroup under one roof. Things are hidden. The debate does not take place, but continues under different roofs. Whether you are affiliated with the ICFTU or the WCL you are asked your opinion and then you are told: there is a world organization and therefore all the national organizations are linked in order to create unity. If you don't agree you are against the consensus, you do not deserve to be integrated into the negotiations. This is what we fear today. What is happening at the ILO is awful. It is the complete hegemony of the ICFTU. It is predetermined before you arrive. When we come to Geneva it is a means of entertainment for us. You do not speak. You simply settle. If the ICFTU and the WCL are fused, it will mean there is no longer a place for workers at the ILO. They are simply lobbies that will make agreements from afar and the dice are loaded against us. What should we do? Should we submit? What we think about in our country is how to create a new international. If they create their own international, can't another international exist? I think that consistent workers and their representatives, linked to labor traditions should think about creating a new international. If the WFTU can no longer play its role, historically we have responsibilities. We think about calling for the constitution of a sub-regional organization that is truly labor-based so as not to be at the mercy of what is happening. We must face this fight against us in the practical phase. It is about the liquidation of trade unions, about labor conquests and from this point of view we will be duped by financial capital. How can we open a perspective in order to survive, to create another framework in opposition to what is being created? That is what we must think about, and we are getting down to it in our country. ----- Roberto Giarocco (Belgium) Dear Comrades, This committee sent a delegation to the European labor movement in Berlin in February. Recently, the Belgian delegates to this meeting called for the continuation of the fight of the Berlin conference by making a practical proposal: to gather information from each country about the facts that indicate the impact of the European Union's decisions on the social a political situation in each country, in order to collect the information and present it in a memorandum to the European Commission, eventually supported by a demonstration or a meeting. I invite you to follow and respond favorably to this appeal. There are two large trade union organizations in my country. The first is the FGTB, of which I am a delegate from the municipal services sector. My trade union has 1,300,000 affiliates in a country with ten million inhabitants. The other large trade union organization is the CSC, confederation of Christian trade unions that has 1,700,000 members. It is a part of the CMT and one of its biggest backers. Therefore, we are concerned about the consequences the fusion of these two organizations will have. The FGTB just had its statutory congress and renewed its leaders. André Mordant was replaced. There were, however, two primary questions at this congress. The first was that of wages. Trade union organizations are being asked to negotiate wage increases below the level of inflation. Up until now, there has always been a guarantee of a wage increases at least at this level. The second question was maintaining the national unity of the FGTB. Belgium is on the map published by the Times: the country is threatened by a crisis of dismemberment. There is no doubt that at the next legislative elections in the spring of 2007 will prelude new negotiations in order to continue regionalization. There has been a lot of regionalization in Belgium. Education, regional development and assistance to companies have all been regionalized, but not social security, the right to work or collective bargaining. These are things that represent the strength of the labor force, its unity. However, what is in question now is having regional collective bargaining. An important event took place from this point of view: the scission of the federation of metalworkers of the FGTB-two wings were formed, the francophone and the Flemish-speaking. There was a distribution of property and funds and the end result was that the Flemish-speaking wing has just negotiated a project of collective bargaining on automobiles that increases flexibility. The fact is that with the division among metalworkers, the trade union is not united before the government, since the francophone wing is demanding that the government refuse the collective bargaining project because it must me translated into a royal decree and have the force of law. The climate of dismemberment is increasing. An extreme right proposal in the Belgian parliament demands that the dismemberment of the Belgian state be examined, while saying that it is the European Union that considers the existence of the country superfluous-this is written in black and white. On the francophone side, the democratic parties are committing blackmail, saying that this has gone too far, that the rights of the Flemish-speaking minority will be undermined in Brussels (the central region that has remained bilingual with rights for the Flemish-speaking people.) The FGTB congress has truly expressed that it is against these elements and has reaffirmed the unity of the FGTB, the need to maintain national collective bargaining and a federal social security system. There were many declarations from the other FGTB federations, with the exception of the metalworkers, that reaffirmed the need to maintain their unity. It is evident that there is unity in the FGTB. This means that there is a refusal from the trade union point of view of to accept responsibility for regionalization measures, especially of the right to work. A regional president of the FGTB went even further than the simple defense of the trade union point of view. He demanded that the political world unite in order to defend Belgium's national conquests-this requires a union between the two socialist parties, the flamand and the wallon, who broke up in the early 80's. Therefore, we have the question of a national government that defends labor conquests and the unity of social security and collective bargaining. What I understand from this morning's report is that it is not really a question of fusion between two organizations. In Belgium, we say this is not the problem. We are not going to fuse the two trade union federations because, in essence, the problem is more about the dissolution of the two trade unions into something larger that would integrate the NGOs and associative movements, so one must pay attention to what will develop from the influence of the social forums. In Belgium we have been faced with the policy of the CSC apparatus. There was a strong demonstration last October against the government's plan to reduce the wages of laid-off older workers-what are called pre-retirement pensions. The CSC was active against the general strike organized by the FGTB on a national scale. It was only through the drive of the CSC base, the Christian trade union, that it rallied to the general strike on October 7. It is obvious that if we had had a CSC apparatus in our trade union organization, the conditions would have been harder and there would have been a serious threat to the dissolution of the FGTB into something larger because the workers would not have had the means to defend themselves. ----- Djibrine Assali Hamdallah (Tchad) I would like to report on what is happening in my country as well as on the creation of a new world organization. Firstly, I would like to salute and encourage the work and the struggle that the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples is undertaking as regards the preservation of the ILO conventions and their application as concerns our countries. The ILC newsletter is an important instrument for us in the formation of our activists and our framework. Our trade union organization has always been considered an opposition organization for the simple reason that when the government came into power in December 1990, it had wanted to dissolve our organization on the pretext that it had collaborated with the previous regime. We were opposed to this arbitrary decision, stressing our strikes and the commission on trade union freedoms of the ILO and on Convention 87. Finally, our federation was recognized and we simply consented to modify the name from National Union of Tchad trade unions to Union of trade unions of Tchad. In the meantime, the government had tried to create two other trade union organizations that had no base since no other federations had accepted becoming affiliated. Nevertheless, three trade union federations exist and we are considered as an opposition organization. This is because last April the president called on the leaders of the different federations and the independent education trade unions to declare that our organization had always opposed him and that we are his declared enemy. There was an attempt to dissolve our organization. The president modified the constitution in 1996 in order to run again for the presidency since there was an agreement at the sovereign national conference in 1993 to limit the number of mandates from five years to two years. We were opposed to his modification. He also changed a law relating to the management of oil revenues. This is because Tchad had solicited the approval of the World Bank for its support in obtaining credits so that Tchad could explore its own oil deposits. At the outset, we were opposed because we were cognizant of the method of operation of this regime and we said the oil could be explored but it would not benefit the people, only its managers and the president's entourage. We subsequently negotiated with the World Bank in Washington in order to obtain guarantees and through this the adoption of a law that regulates the management of oil revenues by setting aside one part for operations and the other part for future generations. Wages, retirement benefits and scholarships are not paid regularly. We asked for a 5% increase in wages for 2005, but the government did not apply it. Since June 5, all public sector workers are on strike in order to reaffirm their demands and also to demand that the government respect their commitments. Regarding the creation of a world organization, considering that my organization is affiliated with the ICFTU, my feeling as an African is that all we do is go along with an evolution because in reality our point of view will probably not be discussed on the base level. This is because it is already sufficiently advanced since the congress for its creation will take place in November. I do not think we could influence the course of events in order to modify them substantially, even if we consulted our bases. I deplore the fact that we are not sufficiently well organized. But here we are and we will fight from inside and hope that our points of view will be taken into consideration. ************************ ANDY STERN & "CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS": By ALAN BENJAMIN Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), has been spending a lot of time lately hanging out with the CEOs of some of the largest U.S. multinational corporations in his quest to work out a "much-needed partnership" to the big problems facing our country. In February, Stern addressed a gathering of corporate lawyers in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he told them that "SEIU's goal for 2006 is to bring unions and corporations together as partners, not enemies." He continued: "Employers need to recognize that the world has changed and there are people who would like to help them provide solutions in ways that are new, modern and that add value to companies. ... A partnership between labor and corporations would be a step towards the intended goal." Then, addressing himself directly to the trade union movement, Stern stated: "On the other side of the coin, union members have to understand that companies are not their enemy, but must think about increasing shareholders' wealth. ... Labor should ask itself, 'how can I contribute to meeting those [shareholders'] expectations in a way that also meets mine'?" (Epoch Times, February 27, 2006) For Andy Stern this is not just rhetoric. Stern's first project was to build a "partnership" with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tyson Foods and Wal-Mart known as the Essential Workers Immigrant Coalition (EWIC). Together with these "partners," Stern and SEIU drafted the outlines of what would become the McCain-Kennedy "immigration reform" bill - an essentially anti-immigration bill that was approved earlier this year by the Senate in a slightly amended form. The SEIU-sponsored bill calls for futher militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border, expanding the second-class "guestworker" (or "essential worker") program, increasing employer sanctions, and expediting deportations. These measures have been advocated for many years by the corporate CEOs. What was the tradeoff for labor and the immigrant rights movement? It was the inclusion in the Senate "compromise" bill of a "path to citizenship" -- after 11 years or so, and after clearing major hurdles -- for some of the 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Most immigrant rights advocates have called this tradeoff unacceptable. Nativo López, president of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), calls it a "Corona-Lite" version of the widely despised Sensenbrenner bill adopted by the House of Representatives last December. "If they thought that compromising on the enforcement measures to obtain some form of legalization would satisfy the immigrant community or the immigrant rights movement," López said, "they're absolutely wrong." (Democracy Now radio program, June 26, 2006) Speaking at a July 24 Educational Forum sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, Olga Miranda, president of SEIU Local 87, said openly it was not the role of a union to seek out "common ground" that would compromise the interests of union members. Such "joint solutions," Miranda noted, are inevitably detrimental to immigrant workers and to the labor movement as a whole. Miranda insisted that her union must return to its traditional role of fighting for the rights of its members -- and for the rights of all working people -- against the bosses' agenda. Miranda said her statement was not an "act of defiance" against her union. Rather, she insisted, it was an act of defense of her union against the attacks on the labor movement by the bosses and the Bush administration -- attacks that have been relayed, "misguidedly," by the leadership of her union. Comments such as these by Sister Miranda are becoming more and more commonplace within SEIU and some of the other unions that are part of the newly formed Change to Win coalition. Perhaps what most shocked SEIU members -- particularly those within the union's Latino caucus -- was when SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina publicly praised Bush's May 16 speech in which Bush briefly mentioned the so-called "path to legalization" while announcing he was sending 6,000 National Guard troops to beef up border enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. Medina said, "We are encouraged that the president understands it will take a comprehensive solution to address the complex immigration crisis our country now faces." SEIU members across the country were outraged that Medina ignored all the repressive aspects of Bush's proposals. Many pointed out that Bush's directive will lead inevitably to more deaths of undocumented immigrants seeking to cross the Arizona desert. Opposition to Stern's new course, in fact, has expanded throughout the labor movement. Ana Avendaño, associate general counsel at the AFL-CIO and director of the labor federation's immigrant worker program, called the Senate "compromise" bill "punitive and inhuman." And she added, "The fact that some national Latino organizations and some unions have signed on to it is very offensive." (interview with labor journalist Lee Sustar on May 19) Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, was asked to comment on Stern's policies during a 15-minute segment of CBS TV's "60 Minutes" that was devoted to Stern's "new course for labor." DeMoro told Lesly Stahl of "60 Minutes" that Stern's "partnerships with giant corporations [would] result in undermining a union's prime mission to defend and advance the interests of its members." "Unions," DeMoro said, "would have to make enormous concessions to get corporations to accept them as junior partners, to the detriment of their members." (CBS TV, May 14, 2006) Trade unionists understand instinctively that what DeMoro said on "60 Minutes" is right on the mark. The corporations' only interest in seeking a "partnership" with the unions is to co-opt the unions into accepting -- and co-administering -- their anti-labor agenda. Stern and Single-Payer Healthcare But Stern has not been content to deal only with the issue of immigration reform. As trade unionists and healthcare activists around the country are fully aware, the fight for single-payer healthcare is back on the front burner. Nationally, there is growing support for HR 676, the single-payer resolution introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. HR 676 now has 72 congressional co-sponsors. Unions across the country are coming on board. In California, the fight for single-payer is heating up as unions and activists are increasing their outreach and lobbying in support of SB 840, the single-payer healthcare bill introduced by State Senator Sheila Kuehl. A vote in the State Assembly on this bill is expected in the coming weeks. SB 840 supporters believe they are on the verge of securing the votes of the 41 State Assembly members needed for the passage of the Kuehl bill. A big boost to this effort occurred on July 25-26, 2006 when the biennial convention of the California Labor Federation endorsed SB 840. It is precisely at this moment -- when momentum is beginning to shift toward single-payer -- that Andy Stern has chosen to reach out to his wannabe corporate "partners" to implore them to do the "right thing" by addressing the healthcare crisis. But what single-payer activists find scandalous is that in all Stern's recent statements and invocations to the corporations, Stern has openly and forcefully dismissed single-payer as a viable option. This Part Two of Stern's "corporate partnership agenda" began with an op-ed article by Stern published June 17 in the Wall Street Journal in which he begs corporate leaders to do something, anything -- except single-payer. Stern writes, "Today I sent a letter to every CEO in the Fortune 500 asking them to make healthcare their national priority. I urge corporate leaders to come forward." Stern's letter to the business leaders concludes as follows: "Our union members -- your employees -- will work with you. The old idea that business and labor can't work together for the common good is as outdated as lifetime jobs. The Service Employees International Union is the largest healthcare union in the country. Our membership includes nearly one million nurses, doctors, hospital staff, nursing home and home care workers. We know health care. You know business. Together, let's build a new 21st-century American economy." Stern's letter is explicit in stating that "single-payer is not viable," as it will not be supported by corporate America. This, of course, is true. Countless corporate CEOs and politicians talk about the need for "universal healthcare" -- but they are adamant about keeping all the health insurance companies, which are reaping mega-profits, in the mix. Single-payer would eliminate the healthcare insurance companies from the healthcare system. These companies are the middlemen who contribute nothing of value to the system. The savings realized by getting rid of them would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually and would be enough to provide coverage for all who are currently uninsured. Stern's proposals -- in the name of "universal healthcare coverage" -- call for tinkering with the current healthcare system; nothing with which the bosses could disagree. In fact, the very same day Stern published his article in the Wall Street Journal, GM CEO Richard Wagoner came out with a plan similar to the one proposed by Stern. Stern Reneges on 'New Deal Answers' Stern presented his case to the employers more fully in a talk he gave at the pro-business Brookings Institution in Washington, DC on June 16. He was one of many panelists asked to address the healthcare crisis. Other panelists included the senior vice president of Costco Corp., the president of the National Small Business Association, and the director of the Health Policy Program of the New America Foundation. The transcription of Stern's talk, published on the website of the Brookings Institution, reveals Stern's all-out effort to find "common ground" with corporate America -- that is, with the very people who have been cutting workers' wages, reneging on paying healthcare to their employees, dropping pension plans ... and just simply attacking all the gains and rights won by working people through bitter struggles for close to one century. Stern's starting point, as usual, is his desire to help the corporations find solutions to their growing woes. He states: "Obviously, we have a huge problem for American business because it is pretty hard to compete in a global economy when the price of your healthcare is put on the cost of goods, while in other countries, it is shared amongst society.... "We live in a new century, and we need a new healthcare paradigm because we have a new economy. ... We can't drive into the future in America, looking in the rearview mirror. We are as far today from the New Deal as the New Deal was from Abraham Lincoln. ... I don't think we can simply look back to the answers in 1935 and imagine them working today." But what are the "answers of 1935" if not the recognition of trade unions by the Wagner Act, or the understanding that the State has a fundamental responsibility to all its citizens to provide Social Security, healthcare, public education, and other vital social services? Isn't single-payer healthcare one such 1935-type answer? Stern's rejection of single-payer becomes more explicit later in his presentation. He continues: "I think we need to find a new system that is not built on the back of the government. I am here to also say I don't think we need to import Canada or any other system. We are going to build an American system because we are Americans and we don't like anybody else's system." Of course, the Canadian model that Stern does not wish to import is the highly vaunted Canadian single-payer system. And not building a system "on the back of the government" is the language of the corporations, not of the labor movement. Stern Joins Schwarzenegger at Healthcare Summit To make things even more explicit, Stern and other Change to Win top officials agreed to participate in a July 25 Heathcare Summit in Los Angeles organized by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that featured corporate executives, doctors, and medical administrators. This forum was viewed widely by single-payer activists across California as an event aimed at undercutting support statewide for the Kuehl bill. It also was seen by most healthcare advocates as a photo opportunity for Schwarzenegger's re-election bid. What came out of the event was the illusion that Schwarzenegger cares, when in effect his record proves otherwise. An article in the July 25 Los Angeles Times highlights the divisions within the trade union movement over this healthcare summit. It states, in part: "As some organizations picket the talks at UCLA, others thank Schwarzenegger for convening the session on funding medical coverage. ..... "The divide was apparent in the differing tones inside UCLA's air-conditioned Covel Commons, where Schwarzenegger held his 'Summit on Health Care Affordability,' and outside in the sweltering courtyard. "Outside, the California Nurses Association ran a picket line of 40 people. 'Any union leader that crosses is a scab,' said Rose Ann DeMoro, the union's executive director. "The head of the California Labor Federation, Art Pulaski, recalled last year's fight with Schwarzenegger over his special election and denounced the governor for not doing more to provide health coverage to Californians. "Inside, the national presidents of three prominent unions -- the Service Employees International Union, the United Farm Workers and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America -- took seats around a long table with the 50 summit participants, and thanked the governor for convening the session. ... "DeMoro, the executive director of the nurses' union, which voted last year to join the AFL-CIO, said union leaders who participated in the summit were betraying their labor brethren. "'It's really shocking frankly, because working people have been hit the hardest by the governor's healthcare policy,' she said. 'The right wing has been extremely effective in dividing the labor movement.' "Doug McCarron, the carpenters union president, called the criticism 'ridiculous. I want to see bipartisan programs and solutions for American workers'." Here you have it all: Stern and his CTW colleagues were inside the convention center around the same table with Schwarzenegger (who has opposed one union-sponsored healthcare bill after another) and with the heads of major corporations, while outside, picketing this anti-labor and anti-healthcare summit were the head of the California Labor Federation and leaders of unions, such as the CNA, that have been the most vocal supporters of healthcare rights and single-payer. For DeMoro and the CNA, Stern's participation at the governor's summit was tantamount to scabbing. California CTW Unions Not Following Stern's Course But in California at least, SEIU and the other Change to Win unions don't seem to be going along with Stern's new pro-corporate course. At the California Labor Federation convention in late July, the SEIU and Change to Win delegates voted to support SB 840, the Sheila Kuehl single-payer bill. They also approved a policy statement on immigration that lambastes "guestworker" programs and opposes the further militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border. Across the state, SEIU delegates to central labor councils have endorsed the statement by the National Network For Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which takes issue on every major question with the positions put forward by Stern. Stern's new policies have little support among the rank and file -- and even among many top leaders -- of SEIU and the other Change to Win unions. This is a very good thing. But there is still an urgent need to organize the discussion in these unions, and more generally in the labor movement as a whole, about the dangers of Stern's new course. This pro-partnership orientation must be rejected explicitly by the ranks of the CTW unions and by the entire labor movement. Don Bechler, who chairs Health Care for All in San Francisco and who has been a leader in the Machinists union for 17 years, explained why the unions must reject Stern's new so-called "strategy." He said: "Union leaders have been elected to lead. Leaders should put forward what they think is sound health policy for working people. Universal healthcare with single-payer financing has been shown over and over again to be great health policy. It saves money and delivers one great class of care to all classes of people. "What we have with the private insurance companies is delivery of different classes of care for different classes of people, wasteful spending, and most important a hideous system where insurance companies try to avoid the sick and only insure the healthy. That is good business for them, but bad health policy for America. The insurance companies are the ones who brought us the term 'pre-existing condition.' It is a term used solely by the insurance industry to deny care to those who need it. "Again, the role of union leaders is to advocate what is best for working people. Keeping private insurance companies in the healthcare loop is not in the best interests of workers. You always enter contract negotiations with a clear idea of your objective. When it comes to healthcare, it's not that corporations don't know what single-payer is; the problem is that they have chosen other anti-worker solutions to cut healthcare costs. "On the issue of healthcare, Andy Stern seems to have steered away from this responsibility to lead." True, indeed. The unions should not be groveling at the feet of the corporations, pleading with them to change their ways. They can't change; all they care about is the need to make more profits. The unions should not be seeking a place at their table. Labor's interests and those of corporate America are diametrically opposed. Labor should stick to its guns, fighting for its own interests in opposition to the employers and the government. The only table labor should be seated at is the negotiating table, where labor is across the table from management, fighting for its demands, based on a mobilized membership to give their bargaining team the best relationship of forces possible to wrest concessions from the bosses. This is what independent trade unionism is all about. **********************
Autonomy of teaching establishment, layoffs, anti trade union repressionŠ "We are opposed to the criminal transformation of state institutions into autonomous establishments" Interview with Macha, a member of the socialist movement Vperiod (Forward!) Last week (ILC issue No. 195) we presented the "demand for solidarity with the SOCPROF, educational trade union of the art school in the town of Shelekov (Irkutsk)." This week we publish an interview with Macha, member of the socialist movement Vperiod. In June of this year, on the initiative of the united Russia party (1), the Douma (2) adopted on the first reading the "law on the autonomy of establishments" which is a cross on the ensemble of secondary and higher education of the country. What is the "autonomy of establishments?" The autonomous establishments are a modified form of property corresponding to most state organisms in the social sphere (all schools, secondary, specialized and higher education, museums, etc.) With this law, these establishments will no longer be state institutions, but will be privatized. General and specialized secondary education, higher education, kindergartens, libraries and museums will be deprived of their status as state establishments. They will lose public financing and their personnel will lose all of their remaining rights. Personnel of an autonomous establishment have no influence on decisions such as appointment of a director, whether to privatize or not, etc. After transformation into autonomous establishments, there will be massive layoffs-what is called "optimization of production." How much does an autonomous establishment cost? According to our bureaucrats, the cost of a fence or a handful of pebbles. With the new law, the assets of the autonomous establishments will be divided into two categories: a simple category and a 'valuable' category, but the law is not precise in determining what is 'valuable'. This means that the directors of autonomous establishments and the administration will be free to dispose of these assets at will. Can one purchase an autonomous establishment? You must come to an agreement with the administration and the directors of the autonomous establishment, and then place it in bankruptcy. When the bankruptcy is declared, all establishments can change their original function. Today it might be a students' residence, tomorrow it could become a cheap hotel. Before it was a music school, tomorrow it could become a store or a casinoŠ Who profits from this? Businessmen who had long hankered for a slice of the large cake that is state property that has not as yet been looted. The administrators are rubbing their hands. According to the new law, they will have equal rights with the private in the so-called "legal guardians" of the autonomous establishments and will be able to dispose of their assets at will. Who is concerned about this law? Everyone! The new status of the educational establishments allows the introduction of paid education, but will also modify the statutory objectives. Since education and culture, by definition, are not profitable, what will happen in the short term is the closure of schools, libraries, museums and kindergartens. What are your demands? We are against the criminal transformation of cultural state institutions into autonomous establishments, deprived of the subsidies and the guarantees of the state. We are against the privatization of public services: health, education and housing. We are against the suppression of obstacles to privatization of public services that ensure a social function. We are for federal social guarantees in relation to the personnel on state and municipal educational institutions and also in relation to categories such as the 'socially defenseless' population: retirees, handicapped, orphans, single parents, large families and others. For this we appeal for the self-organization of students, teachers, parents, researchers in united committees in order to oppose the destructive plans of the government. (1) United Russia: the party that Putin represents in parliament. ************************
The European Union delivers the final stroke to the Latvian sugar industry In the former Soviet Union, as in all of Europe, the European Union imposes a policy of liquidation of large sectors of industry and agriculture. A correspondent sent us this article from a local publication. Thanks to our high government officials, our sugar industry has been wiped off the map. Over two days ago large quantities of Polish Royal sugar, in a bright red package, appeared on our supermarket shelves. It is 22% more expensive than Latvian sugar but there is none other available. The scandals surrounding the beet quotas, the sugar reserves for confectioners and finally the European legislation delivered the final blow to the two remaining refineries operating in our country. The ecological requirements became exorbitant. The two refineries received orders to change their refining system. The prime minister hurried to explain to the press that peasants should produce what they know how to produce. But beet cultivation is something they have been practicing for a long time. Last March the Elgava factory announced its reconversion for the production of a biofuel based on rapeseed oil. But on March 27 the bosses declared they would continue to operate and the peasants were told to plant their seeds. They also negotiated a guarantee in case of a repetition of last year when the factory stopped production "for technical reasons." The sugar producers must pay around six million lats ( 1 lat =1.4 euros) in order to receive authorization to produce 66,000 tons of sugar. They are paid 89 lats per ton; while on the London exchange, sugar prices are as high as 270 lats per ton. If the two factories had closed they would have received 34 million lats in compensation. The farmers would only have received 10% of this amount. During this time the European rules rained down in abundance, each worse than the last. Even our agriculture minister, Martinych Roze, labeled the latest European invention as 'idiotic.' It requires the sugar producer who stops production to pay a guarantee equal to 120% of the proposed compensation. If the two factories closed they would have to pay a guarantee of 36 million lats. No bank would offer a guarantee for such an enormous sum for a company about to be liquidated. The farmers, threatened with ruin, acquired a leasing contract and worked hard in order to pay. Those who had trucks switched to transporting asphalt and gravel at dumping prices. They were not looking for profits but merely to cover their expenses, benefiting from subsidies to maintain their activity. They proposed tariffs that would allow them to pay for the gas and the leasing. This was a coup for construction companies that did not benefit from subsidies and only profited from their activity. In other words, via prices and quotas, Europe has finished off our sugar industry and other spheres of our economy. Vadim Falkov
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