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A dossier of weekly information published by the ----- Introduction The Second Continental Conference of the Americas Against Free Trade Treaties, for National Sovereignty will meet in Mexico on April 4, 5, 6, 2008. The newsletter of the Organizing Committee notes that the following people will be speaking at the opening night rally: Claudia Sheinbaum, Secretary of Energy of the Legitimate Government of Mexico, representing Lopez Obrador (Mexico); Antonio Carlos Sid, member of the national executive board of the Brazilian Workers Confederation (CUT) (Brazil); a representative of the national mineworkers union of Mexico; Ezequiel Rosario, leader of Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (Mexico); Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist and independent Congressional candidate (United States); Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate of the Power to the People Coalition (United States); Jaime Eduardo Alcivar, National Assembly of Ecuador; Mario Huaman Riversa, general secretary of the CGTP of Peru; among others. A few days from the conference, we are publishing: - A report by Alan Benjamin concerning the mass meeting on the Zocalo
of Mexico. In this issue, you will also find an article on the demonstration of 100,000 educators in Portugal and a report on the International and National Conference in Defense of the Imprisoned Mineworkers in Romania. ----- Table of Contents p. 1: Introduction ----- Contact Informations internationales ***********************
100,000 teachers demonstrate against the dismantling of public education Close to two-thirds of public education teachers demonstrated on March 8 in downtown Lisbon. This national mobilization had been preceded two weeks before by demonstrations in the main towns of the country. These protests, which at first were spontaneous, were then called in a united manner by the teacher's unions affiliated to the two big confederations, the CGTP and the UGT. The mega demonstrations showed the response to the brutal offensive against public education, an offensive against all public services. Essentially, the Socrates government adopted a plan to eliminate a third of the state's central services, liquidate 75,000 jobs in the public sector, and reduce the national education budget to 3.5% of the GDP. These measures are part of the "reforms" of the Lisbon Agenda, adopted at the summit of the European Union in March 2000. This Agenda aims, on the level of education, to introduce public-private partnerships, the end of national diplomas, the individualization of wages and the undermining of collective conventions. These clear blows to education and all other public service budgets allowed the government to "reduce" the budget deficit to less than 3% of the GDP, as demanded by Maastricht. The detonator of this movement was the implementation of a system aiming to individualize the wages of teachers. This was massively rejected at the schools and the situation was aggravated by a media campaign by the government aiming to turn the parents against the teachers. Numerous teachers who participated in the demonstration had never before attended a march. Without a doubt it was the most important demonstration of teachers since April 25, 1974. The General Secretary of the main teacher's federation, the FENPROF, affiliated to the CGTP, declared that the current minister was no longer acceptable and demanded to discuss directly with the Prime Minister. At the same time, she affirmed that the FENPROF demanded first the suspension of the decree-law and a renegotiation of the new statute on career course. The teachers organized into the POUS (Workers Party of Socialist Unity) constituted, with other teachers, a committee in defense of public education. This committee fights for the realization of the unity of the trade unions around demands demonstrating that the defense of public education requires a break with the European Union. This committee, which participated in the demonstration, published an appeal that calls on the trade unions to together address the MPs of the Socialist Party, which has the absolute majority in the Assembly of the Republic, to demand the abrogation of the decree law and the abrogation of the new statute on career course. In recent years, there have been various demonstrations that raised the slogan: "Without education, there is no nation!" Essentially, the defense of the Portuguese nation requires the defense and reconquest of national public education, as inscribed into the Constitution of the Republic and the fundamental law on education, a product of the revolution of April 25 1974. Carmelinda Pereira, ***********************
SECOND CONTINENTAL AMERICAS CONFERENCE CND Mass Rally on March 18 Calls for National Action By ALAN BENJAMIN MEXICO CITY - March 18 marked the 70th anniversary of the nationalization of Mexico's oil resources by then-President Lázaro Cárdenas. To mark this anniversary and, more important, to launch a national fightback campaign against the imminent plans by the illegitimate government of Felipe Calderón to begin the privatization of Pemex, Mexico's national oil corporation, the National Democratic Convention (CND) organized a mass rally on March 18 in Mexico City's downtown plaza: the Zócalo. One of the two rally keynote speakers was Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the legitimate president of Mexico (having clearly won the June 2006 presidential election, only to have it stolen by Calderón and Bush). López Obrador is also the main spokesperson of the CND, a mass resistance movement that was born after this massive voter fraud and the ensuing protest marches of millions of Mexicans who demanded a vote recount - a demand that was never met. The other rally keynote was Claudia Sheinbaum, the Secretary of Energy and National Patrimony of the Legitimate Government of Mexico. Sheinbaum laid out the action plan proposed by the CND to defend Mexico's oil against Calderón and his paymasters: Bush and his oil cronies, who are champing at the bit to take back the oil resources expropriated by Cárdenas in 1938. The International Liaison Committee - which was invited to attend the first mass rally organized by the CND on September 16, 2006 - was again invited by the CND coordinators to participate in this March 18 assembly. I was fortunate to be able to represent the ILC on the podium of this spirited event. An Escalating Plan of Actions Both López Obrador and Sheinbaum exposed and denounced the public-relations campaign by Calderón and the media aimed at casting the proposed "reforms" to Mexico's secondary statutes as nothing but a step toward "modernizing" Mexico's oil drilling capacities in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Calderón has insisted repeatedly, including in his own "official" 70th anniversary celebration in the southern state of Tabasco, that the "reforms," slated to be presented to Mexico's Congress on March 25, have absolutely nothing to do with privatization or relinquishing Mexico's sovereign control over its oil resources. "Not so," replied López Obrador. "Theirs is simply a ploy to win public acceptance for something that is unacceptable to all Mexicans. Š We will not allow them to take even one step in the direction of privatizing our oil." López Obrador continued, "We must not be duped: They have a plan, one small step at a time, to take us back to the days of the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship, when we were enslaved by the foreign oil corporations. But we will not take one step back!" In her speech, Sheinbaum gave a detailed explanation of the deception campaign deployed by Calderón and his Energy Secretary, Georgina Kessel, to modify the secondary laws governing Pemex. But the bulk of her presentation was devoted to the National Campaign of Peaceful Civil Resistance proposed by the CND coordinators to stop the privatization assault on Pemex. "We not going to permit Calderón and his U.S. bosses to take control of even one oil rig," Sheinbaum said. "On March 25, we are told, their assault is to begin. Well, we will be prepared and ready to act." Sheinbaum went on to lay out a comprehensive Action Plan that would escalate in intensity and scope if the "reform" measures are not withdrawn by Calderón. The campaign would be structured on Local Committees to Defend Pemex and highly disciplined Action Brigades. The campaign, Sheinbaum said, would begin with mass picketing and occupations of targeted buildings. If that did not work, Sheinbaum continued, the resistance movement, led by women, would occupy and shut down roads and highways. If the "reforms" were still not withdrawn, the resistance movement would then call on all the Mexican people and their organizations to mobilize in a National Strike. Sheinbaum put these proposals to a vote, by acclamation, to the tens of thousands of people assembled in the Zócalo. (According to some media estimates, there were more than 100,000 people, a very significant number given the Semana Santa [Holy Week] holidays, when most public-sector workers leave the city for their annual paid vacation.) Everyone in the Zócalo raised their hands and their fists in
unison in approval of the proposals from their legitimate government.
This was accompanied by thunderous chants proclaiming, "Ni Un Paso
Atrás!" - not one step backward - and "La Patria No
Se Vende, El Petróleo Se Defiende!" - the country is not
for sale, our oil must be defended. "I realize we will be called troublemakers, proponents of violence, and people who are a danger to Mexico," López Obrador continued. "But they are the ones who represent a real-and-present danger to our nation, privatizing our oil and thereby preventing us from financing our public schools, our healthcare systems, our transportation [note: oil revenue accounts for 40% of the federal budget-Ed.]. They are ones destroying our industries, our hopes, our future. Š" "What we are doing is noble, responsible and efficient," he concluded. "But to meet our objectives we must avoid confrontation and violence at all costs. We must not be provoked." Unionists and activists of the Democratic and Independent Workers Party
(PTDI) mobilized for the rally and distributed thousands of leaflets
inviting people to attend the opening public rally on April 4 of the
Second Continental Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations (at which
Claudia Sheinbaum will be one of the keynote speakers). "We're going back home tonight to build the Action Brigades and Committees in our workplaces, our unions, and our communities," said a teacher from a peasant community. "We have to begin preparing the National Strike. It's going to take shutting down the country to stop the usurper [Calderón] and his business cronies from privatizing our oil and dismantling our nation. We are ready!" ----- Teamsters' Union Urges Support for NAFTA Accountability Act Presentation Dear Sisters and Brothers, We are publishing in this issue of Unity & Independence an important statement by James P. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters' union, in which he urges the U.S. trade union and activist movements to support the NAFTA Accountability Act, or H.R. 4329. We believe it is positive to demand - as Brother Hoffa does in his statement below - that the U.S. government should withdraw from NAFTA. For many years now, we in the Continuations Committee of the Western Hemisphere Conference, which was held in San Francisco in November 1997, have been calling for the repeal of NAFTA. In our view, this agreement is the institutional framework through which a major offensive has been waged by Corporate America against working people in all three signatory countries: the United States, Canada and Mexico. The evidence is unmistakable: NAFTA has destroyed jobs, labor rights and standards, democratic rights, environmental and health standards - and democracy itself - in all three signatory countries. There is no need to wait till the end of 2008 to make the case that NAFTA is bad for working people on both sides of the borders. But if it is still necessary to prove this point to the American public, let's do it. We are certain that any serious and impartial body will be compelled to acknowledge what we have just said. Nor do we see any changes for the better in store in the coming months. The situation has only continued to worsen. The new NAFTA chapter on agricultural commodities just went into effect January 1 of this year. It will further destroy Mexico's native crops, its countryside, and its farm population. Already there has been a huge increase in Mexican peasants fleeing the barbarism of NAFTA into the United States to seek a way to feed their families. At the same time, we don't think there is any real re-negotiation possible
that could "improve" this "free trade" agreement
- as some people are proposing. George W. Bush is now willing to include
labor and environmental language in the body of all new "free trade"
agreements (such as the U.S.-Peru Trade Agreement or the upcoming U.S.-Colombia
Trade Agreement) - whereas under NAFTA these clauses were just written
into side agreements. But people across the continent are no longer being bought off by the promise of labor or environmental language in the trade deals - in whatever form. The agreement with Peru has such language built into the body of the agreement. But this language is meaningless. It has no power of implementation. No sooner had the Peru trade agreement been signed than the Peruvian government began suppressing a mineworkers' strike. There is nothing in that agreement that would bind the government to respect labor's right to organize and have a fair contract. Indeed, the very reason for these "free trade" agreements is to remove all "barriers to trade" - by which the bosses mean labor protections, unions, and regulations. Labor journalist David Bacon wrote: "To get the Peru treaty through Congress, its supporters claimed it would protect labor rights. Peruvian unions don't believe this promise any more than they believe it will bring them jobs." After describing the mineworkers' strike in Peru, Bacon concluded: "Toothless labor rights protections never stopped union-busting and job elimination in Mexico. They won't in Peru, either." (San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 20, 2007) It is our view that the promise of labor and environmental clauses in the body of the agreements is nothing more than a sweetener to get working people to swallow the deadly pill of "free trade." This is the reason for this Second Continental Conference in Mexico City. It will be a place for U.S. unionists and activists to coordinate the resistance and fight-back against this destructive corporate agenda - so that we can begin turning back the "free trade" steamroller. We believe that pushing for a NAFTA Accountability Act that leads to the U.S. withdrawal from this agreement - without being seduced by the promise of a better, re-negotiated pact with improved labor and environmental standards - is an urgent task today. The only real "re-negotiation" possible is to ditch these "free trade" deals to permit trade that respects the sovereignty and self-determination of the oppressed nations of the continent. In solidarity, ----- Statement by James P, Hoffa, President of the The 1.4 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters supports
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Accountability Act,
H.R. 4329, introduced by Congresspersons Marcy Kaptur and Nancy Boyda. Under NAFTA, the trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has increased by more than $919 billion. The United States has seen more than 1 million living-wage jobs lost under NAFTA. The Teamsters have seen directly the negative impact of NAFTA. Many Teamster jobs have been lost due to U.S. companies closing and setting up shop in Mexico to take advantage of NAFTA and Mexico's lower wages and lax labor laws. Not only have the U.S. workers been hurt by NAFTA but workers in Canada and Mexico as well. Canadian workers have seen their wages stagnate and a significant increase in the growing inequality amongst the richest 1 percent and the rest of the workforce since NAFTA. In Mexico, more than 1 million agricultural jobs have disappeared while wages stagnate around $ per day. Since the inception of NAFTA, the United States has seen immigration increase from Mexico, as families are desperate and feel they must leave their country in order to provide for their families. Also, NAFTA was touted as promoting the expansion of political freedoms and human rights. Citizens and union workers continue to experience great infringement of such basic rights and freedoms. The "NAFTA Accountability Act" would require the Executive Branch to renegotiate NAFTA and/or certify that the three countries have met certain benchmarks, or the President would be required to withdraw from NAFTA. The benchmarks include gains in U.S. jobs and living standards, increased U.S. domestic manufacturing, stronger health and environmental standards, especially with respect to food imports, decreased flow of illegal drugs from Mexico and Canada, and the guarantee of Mexican democracy and human freedoms. Passage of such legislation is long overdue. Workers in the United States, Canada and Mexico have had enough of the damage that NAFTA has caused.
To all the workers' and union organizations that participate in the ILC Dear friends and comrades, The ILC has just received the following message from the Mexican Electrical
Workers Union (SME), which is co-organizing the Second Continental Conference: A new contract negotiation of the SME is in a extremely difficult situation because of the break of the federal government with the legitimate right to strike. We have deflected the attacks of those in power who look for confrontation and aim to liquidate our trade union. But, for the moment they have not succeeded in realizing their goals; nevertheless, the neo-liberals will not cease to try to end our union and aim to crush the whole working class of our country. We are already preparing already to organize to prevent their plans. Your support and solidarity are extremely important for us; we will never forget it. Solidarity is the tenderness of peoples, said Ernesto Guevara. Today, more than ever, we understand this. Thank you for everything comrades. We will see you at the next crossroad and in the trenches of the struggle. Fraternally, --- We urgently call on all activists and organizations that participate in the ILC, particularly in the Americas, to express their solidarity with the SME and to demand that the federal government of Mexico immediately lift all barriers on union rights and that it re-establishes the right to strike, which is a basic foundation of democracy. Paris, March 20, 2008 Write your messages to With a Copy to: Letter from the Coordinator of the ILC to the Secretary of Labor Dear Mr. Minister of Labor, The ILC just received the following message from the SME: "A new contract negotiation of the SME is in a extremely difficult situation because of the break of the federal government with the legitimate right to strike. We have deflected the attacks of those in power who look for confrontation and aim to liquidate our trade union. But, for the moment they have not succeeded in realizing their goals; nevertheless, the neo-liberals will not cease to try to end our union and aim to crush the whole working class of our country. We are already preparing already to organize to prevent their plans." We call on you to immediately end all attacks on full union liberties and we call on you to reestablish the right to strike, a basic foundation of democracy. Paris, March 20, 2008 ************************
National and International Union Conference for the Freeing of the Imprisoned Mineworkers, March 16, Tirgu Jiu Freedom for Constantin Cretan, Dorin Loïs and Vasili Lupu! On Sunday, March 16, in Tirgu Jiu, a national and international conference met in response to the call of Miron Cozma to demand the release of the imprisoned mineworker leaders Constantin Cretan, Dorin Loïs and Vasili Lupu, who were sentenced and imprisoned (with Miron Cozma) in September 2005. After 10 years in prison, Miron Cozma, recently freed, opened the conference by reaffirming that he would not cease to fight as long as his comrades remained in prison. Let us recall that these union leaders were sentences to five years in prison for having organized, on the basis of the mandate of their union members, union demonstrations in 1999 against the restructuring of the mine industry. Their imprisonment is in contradiction with Conventions 87 and 98 of the ILO, as is underlined by the grievance registered in 2006 by the national union confederation, Meridian. To this grievance, the Committee of the ILO on Trade Union Freedoms responded (Case 2486) in Marc 2007 that it would demand explanations from the Romanian government and underlined: "If the investigation concludes that there was anti-union discrimination, the committee calls on the government to take measures to assure their immediate liberation The committee calls on the government to keep in informed on these points." The facts It is because the imprisonment of union leaders is a threat against the very existence of all union activity that numerous trade union organizations responded to the call of Miron Cozma to participate in the March 16 conference. Among those participating were the national union confederations, Meridian, National Union Bloc, and the CSLR-Fratia, the League of Mineworker Unions of the Jiu Valley (LSMVJ), as well as a regional organization affiliated to the Cartel-Alfa confederation. Representatives of the international workers' movement were also present. (See article below.) On Sunday, March 16, in the morning, an international delegation visited the maximum security penitentiary in Tirgu Jiu to visit Constantin Cretan, who just turned 50 years old in prison. This was yet another opportunity to note the dramatic conditions facing the incarcerated unionists. As Cretan, who suffers from cardiac troubles, remarked to the French and Yugoslavian unionists, the infirmary in the prison does not have even a single thermometer. At noon, a wave of unionists and mineworkers from many mining towns in the valley entered into the hall of the House of Culture of the unions of Tirgu Jiu. Opening the conference, Miron Cozma proposed to observe a minute of silence in memory of Ionel Ciontu, a mineworker leader who died in prison for lack of adequate health care in January 2007. Next, Cozma, after greeting the presence of the wives and children of the imprisoned mineworker unionists, presented the different speakers, whose speeches were punctuated by the united shouts of "Liberty!" and "Unity!" After the speeches, a open letter to president Traian Basescu was read by Miron Cozma and approved unanimously. The letter calls on the president to immediately pardon the imprisoned mineworker leaders, a right of his given by the Romanian constitution. ----- Appeal to the president of the republic of Romania "The fate of these men is in your hands" "In your hands you have the lives of men who are imprisoned even though they are innocent. Constantin Cretan, Dorin Lois, and Vasili Lupu are three union leaders who were imprisoned for instigating the subversion of state power, following the social protests of 1999. We, who have met in Tirgu Jiu on March 16, 2008, we hundreds of unionists and activists of Romania, representing dozens of representative organizations, on a regional to national level, together with representatives from several union organization in France, Germany, Serbia, and the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples, affirm that there is an urgent need for you to use the powers given to you by the Constitution and pardon the imprisoned union leaders. It is unacceptable that Romania in the 21st century has unionists imprisoned in state prisons. This is the only case in the European Union of union leaders being detained for infractions against the state, in conditions where they did nothing other than leader their brothers in the framework of the protests legally decided on by the members of their unions and their representatives. Constantin Cretan, Dorin Loïs and Vasili Lupu are in very difficult circumstances for their health, as was confirmed by the doctors of the prison system as well as an independent delegation of foreign doctors that visited them in 2007. Mr. President of Romania, you have the power and the duty to pardon Constantin Cretan, Dorin Loïs and Vasili Lupu. This would be both an act of justice and a humanitarian act. With the hope that our appeal will be heard, we thank you." ----- Article Published by the newspaper "Jurnalul National" (March 17), the most read daily in Romania "Cozma, freed, demands a pardon for his imprisoned comrades" Supported by union leaders from abroad, Miron Cozma called on president Traian Basescu to pardon the three union leaders sentenced to 5 years in prison for "complicity in the subversion of state power": Constantin Cretan, Dorin Loïs and Vasili Lupu. Thus, yesterday, in Tirgu Jiu, an open letter addressed to the president, was signed by representatives of more than 150 national and international organizations. The following were personally present: Jacques Girod, from the Parisian branch of the CGT-Force Ouvriere; Dominique Vincenot, representative of the ILC; Hennin Frey, of the Federation of Teachers Union of German; Pavlusko Imsirovic, of Serbia, the head of the Association for Workers' Politics, and other national union organizations. In the hall where the conference took place, several hundred people were present and shouted chants calling for the release of Cretan, Lois, and Lupu. "We do not want those leaders who are still alive to suffer the same fate as Ionel Ciontu. We have proof that he was virtually sentenced to death and executed. I clearly say that he died in conditions of criminal indifference on the part of the Romanian authorities. Why was the result of his autopsy not made public? To this day, the government has not moved one finger to illuminate the truth," said Cozma. ----- Throughout Europe, delegations to the Romanian embassies The conference was informed of the following initiatives -- A delegation organized by the International Committee Against Repression (CICR) met with the Romanian embassy in Paris, on Thursday, march 13, 2008, and was received for more than one hour with a representative. (See ILC International Newsletter 178). -- In Hungary, the leadership of the union confederation, Munkastanacsok (Workers Councils), which met on March 13, unanimously sent a telegram to the embassy of Romania in Budapest demanding the release of Cretan, Lois, and Lupu. This appeal was also signed by over 15 intellectuals and political leaders of the country. -- In the Republic of Moldavia, on the night of March 13, a rally in front of the Romanian consulate in Chisinau, called for by the Popular Resistance organization, adopted a resolution transmitted to the authorities and demanding the immediate release of the imprisoned. -- In Madrid, on Friday March 14, a delegation composed of UGT and CCOO leaders brought a motion signed by 67 union leaders (and several organizations) to the third councilor of the embassy. -- In Moscow, a motion co-signed by numerous union leaders and workers was transmitted on the same day to the Romanian embassy in Russia. Delegations were also organized on Monday March 17 in Berlin (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), and in Istanbul (Turkey). ---- The news published in this issue are excerpts from Issue #12 of the newsletter of the Workers Solidarity Fund for the Imprisoned Mineworker Leaders and their Families. Donate to the Workers Solidarity Fund! The payments made by the fund, from unions and activists, have allowed several direct contributions to the families of the imprisoned. In France, you can send your check payments (CMO), made out to Fonds de solidarité (Romania), c/o Entente internationale, 87, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, 75010 Paris. ***********************
Excerpts from the speech by Cynthia McKinney at the anti-war protests of March 19 March 19, 2008 marks the 5 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. A few months after the invasion, Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished." Five years later, the Iraqi people still face the terror of war, torture, and death. Between 350,000 and 500,000 Iraqis have already lost their lives because of this war. Over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died, and tens of thousands are wounded. Bush and his vice-president Cheney have continued their war thanks to the votes of the Democratic majority in Congress, which voted for the war funding. On March 19, important demonstrations took place in the main cities of the U.S., particularly in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. We are publishing excerpts from the speech of Cynthia McKinney to the gathering in San Francisco. Condoleezza, Dick, and George lied to us and the Congress let them
spy on us.
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