|
|
A dossier of weekly information published by the ----- Introduction In Algiers, in November 2010: 463 labor activists from 54 countries have convened the Open World Conference Against War and Exploitation. In Issue 367 of the ILC International Newsletter, we published the appeal. In this issue you will find:
- A note: What is the ILC? - Excerpts from the appeal. Brazil: We are publishing a letter from the current O Trabalho current of the Workers Party, "'Land, Labor, and Sovereignty (TTS)' gets more than 5,000 votes." Guadeloupe: You will find excerpts from the newspaper of the Travay é Peyizan movement that has been sent by our correspondents in Guadeloupe. We are also printing the statement of support for Raymond Gauthiérot, former secretary general of the UGTG, who is being attacked by the French state, as well as publishing a message of solidarity. ------ Table of Contents ----- Contact Informations internationales ***********************
Letter from the O Trabalho current of the Workers' Party November 25, 2009 Initial results of the PED (*) 2009 (Process of internal elections inside Workers' Party) "Land, Labor, and Sovereignty (TTS)" gets more than 5,000 votes We have achieved the national target of 5,000 votes to retain a position at the National Leadership, with 85% of the votes cast (*). The majority list (NBC, NR and PTLM) elected ]as new president with nearly 59% of the vote and 56% of the Directorate. 500,000 members = voted. The DEP was consistent with what we expected: a quite unbalanced struggle, with empty debates because the PT leadership, subordinate to the Planalto [presidential palace Ndt], announces its decisions via the press, leading to Sunday's departure of voters with their dues paid. In one sense this is an aspect of the degeneration that threatens to destroy the PT. We must congratulate the local committee activists the and current (...) O Trabalho who faced this difficult debate - we were the only ones who did not make concessions - who overcame the bureaucratic obstacles from the registration lists, who = publicly fought for the vote on the basis of the platform of Land, Labor, and Sovereignty (TTS), and who made door to door visits. At the same time, our result was only possible because PT members are in their majority workers with the same needs of the masses who still see the party of the red star as the sole instrument for their deepest aspirations, a party to which they have flocked in a larger scale than anticipated by the president of PT itself again yesterday (400,000), despite the characteristics of the PED. Being asked to vote in these circumstances is wholly the responsibility of the directions of all currents (including the "left") who designed and perfected the DEP, which now seems "exhausted" for many PT members, as well as for us, who have always defended the process of meetings of delegates. PT Candidates The first impact of the PT on the scene concerned "political alliances." In Rio de Janeiro conditions allowed the militants to overcome the Planalto by having their own PT candidate (PT) run for governor -- this problem is also posed in other states such as Sao Paulo and Minais Gerais. Recent nuanced statements from Dilma and Lula demonstrate this. But the defense of the PT via running its own candidates in the states has a political content: the realization of popular aspirations for a government to break with imperialism. This was the platform put forward by the TTS in the DEP, and it will be submitted to the program discussion of the PT candidate for president, Dilma, including an "other governance" for consulting the people through a Constituent Assembly. As we gather data and study results from the states, of the advances and setbacks, a first practical conclusion is evident. PT Dialogue The time is ripe for a National Meeting of PT Dialogue. The TTS slate used the minor opening of the DEP to discuss with the militants, and the results prove it: there are activists and groups who did not see a way out in the PED , including in other lists, but who also seek to give the PT a different policy, linked to the struggle of workers. It is our responsibility to help these friends now and find the material means to make possible their presence on December 13, in Sao Paulo, to discuss a independent workers platform. The immediate question now is to determine exactly who is coming and how. This meeting will take place in a situation where revolution and counter-revolution clash in the continent, as is seen in the challenge to the electoral fraud that is prepared in Honduras - and which is bringing the Lula government to take more distance Obama - a situation also characterized by resistance in Mexico, and the measures that the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia are induced to take. The 2010 platform for discussion in committees of PT dialogue will integrate the most pressing problems of the class struggle - such as the battle for oil, for land reform to the withdrawal of Haiti, the police power given to the Armed Forces, among others - but also the organizing in Brazil for the Open World Conference, and of course the initiatives and proposals for the 4th Congress of the PT (February), including resistance to "the agreement with the PMDB" and the fight for PT candidates. November 25, 2009 Executive Committee of O Trabalho (*) The candidacy of Sokol won more than 4 000 votes and vote for the
state is around 1.3% of total valid votes, slightly above the DEP in
2007. *************************** OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE : ALGIERS, NOVEMBER 2010 In this issue we publish excerpts from the call and interviews with
Louisa Hanoune and Daniel Gluckstein.
- The ILC struggles against the structural adjustment plans imposed
by the IMF and World Bank, which push for the liquidation of the public
sector and privatizations. It fights for the political independence
of the labor movement and against its integration with the state and
the corporations. It fights to defend labor rights and collective labor
contracts, by opposing the policies of deregulation and flexibility,
now pushed in the name of globalization and the global economy. As such, we have been part of all international and continental meetings
conducted under the auspices of the ILC. And the title of the conference,
"against war and exploitation," is greatly appreciated by
the leadership of the Workers Party. We like the choice of this title
because it concentrates the world situation today. And today, the peculiarity of our conference is that it will put at the center a question to which workers and labor organizations around the world are facing, namely: the need to resist all formulas that aim to incorporate labor organizations into employers' organizations and governments in the name of so-called "global governance." The Copenhagen summit, under the guise of fighting against global warming, proposed to include all labor organizations into the same global governance, as well as regional governance and corporate governance. We believe that workers and their organizations have no place in the corporate government, they should seek to preserve their independence in the daily struggles in the world. This fight for the independence of labor organizations will be at the heart of the discussion among activists from different backgrounds, but who face similar challenges and seeking the same solutions, at the Algiers conference.
And there is the fact that Algeria is emerging from a national tragedy which we plunged us into almost total isolation. We're reclaiming our normal conditions of life and fiscal policy, and therefore peace. It is for us something very important because it allows us to reconnect with very old traditions of Algeria, the traditions of international solidarity in the war of liberation. After independence and until the early 1980s, Algeria was called the Mecca of the revolutionaries. This means that leaders, activists, peoples and countries who were still fighting for their independence could find refuge in Algeria. This included militants in countries with dictatorships, such as Spain under Franco, or Portugal under Salazar, or Chile under Pinochet, or Argentina -- there were a lot of political activists for which Algeria was a land of asylum. These traditions have remained, particularly regarding Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the situation in which we were immersed.
By organizing this conference in Algiers on African soil, this is a point of leverage for the resolute action of workers and peoples of this continent, is also an act against the multinationals and governments in their service that make the continent richest in resources the poorest as well. ---- Eighteen years have elapsed. Domestic conflicts as well as conflicts between nations are ceaselessly erupting. Wars have devastated Afghanistan, then Iraq again, the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus; entire regions of Africa have been plunged in a blood bath. Such wars, back in 2001, were depicted by former U.S. President George W. Bush as part of the "total war - economic, social, political, military." Eighteen years have elapsed. Is it possible for labour and democratic rights activists and organisations the world over not to be alarmed by the escalation of conflict in the Middle East today, particularly Israel's military assault on Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on the planet, and by its ongoing collective punishment of the people of Gaza? Is it possible for those who seek peace and justice to remain silent in the face of this aggression and the suffering it has inflicted? And those who are responsible for that disaster have the nerve to affirm that the only solution for the working class and its organisations would be to be co-opted into the "global governance" - that is, to join and collaborate in the implementation of the so-called "stimulus packages" that inject hundreds of billion dollars and euros back into the banks for yet more specula- tion, thereby causing still further destruction of the labour force and of all the gains that have been wrenched through class struggle. Everywhere, those who are responsible for the crisis have the nerve to order labour organisations to give up their identity, their mandate, their prerogatives - that is, the right to strike, the right to negotiate and reach collective-bargaining agreements, the right to defend the specific interests of Labour against Capital; those rights without which democracy would be non-existent. And yet, on every continent, the working class is seeking to use the organisations that it has created through class struggle; it is seeking to preserve its very existence through strikes, demonstrations, and through its obstinate rejection of destructive and dislocating wars. Therefore, with our various origins and backgrounds, is it not our task to call a World Conference, open widely on the international level to all the forces of the labour and democratic movements that refuse the orders of those who want the labouring masses and the peoples to foot the bill of the crisis which they, the ruling elite, have themselves brought into being - a World Conference open to all those who consider that preserving the total independence of the labour organisations and gains is vital? ************************ GUADELOUPE We publish in this issue excerpts from the newspaper of the Travay é Peyizan movement, which has been sent by our correspondents in Guadeloupe, and the statement of support for Raymond Gauthiérot, the former secretary general of the UGTG, who is being persecuted by the French state. CONTINUE OUR FIGHT! We wrote at the beginning of the movement, which has been rightly described by everyone as historic and unprecedented, that "for years, the workers and the people of Guadeloupe have been dealt blows by employers under the protection of the colonial power and often with the complicity of many elected officials. Today the workers and the people of Guadeloupe decided, with their organizations, to take the offensive. " And for that they have a tool, LKP, organized around a platform of 146 demands. On this basis they are mobilized, and have remain mobilized for almost a year. They went on strike, they demonstrated, and they are always ready to answer the call of LKP. The mobilization of November 24 and 25, 2009 confirm this. They continue to fight vigorously because neither the French government, nor those running the colonial institutions in our country, can or want to satisfy their claims. That's why more and more workers, youth and much of the people have understood that they must choose a different path. As we said in the editorial of Travay é Peyizan No. 23: "This new path cannot be that of the Estates General, or articles 73 or 74, or any other variant that leaves us subservient to colonial institutions." This path faces various obstacles. The more we approach the elections planned by the colonial power to run its institutions, the pressure becomes higher. So are we witnessing initiatives and declarations of all kinds. It is up to the organizations, and those those who have fought with the workers, youth, the people of Guadeloupe for the past year, to fight, to keep fighting, to help overcome these pitfalls while building the tool necessary to fight. It is with this perspective that activists of Travay é Peyizan continue to contribute. THE RESPONSE OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT The Estates General of the French government was indeed an attempt to regain control against the disturbance of the colonial empire by the movement during the past year. It is an approach to establish a "reorganize the governance of colonialism." Indeed, in his speech of November 6, 2009 for the "overseas",
the last colonies of France, the French president did not addresse the
workers, nor the youth, nor the people of these countries. He did not
respond to their demands. He did not respond to the platform of the
LKP. The only time he alluded to the movement was to make threats. Knowing he would not provide any satisfactory answer to the workers, the youth, he began by dispatching more than 800 additional mobile guards to Guadeloupe, as well as the services of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DST). It has strengthened its legal repression. Instead of putting in place a contingency plan for employment, training and integration of youth, as provided in the Agreement of March 4, 2009 which suspended the strike for 44 days, the government developed a plan of repression against young people. After the repression against the lawyers, there was the anti-union repression against two leaders of the UNSA, very active members of the LKP, and a delegate of the UGTG, for their union activities within their companies. Colonial Justice continues its relentless attacks against the former secretary general of the UGTG, R. Gauthiérot. The French president spoke to their bosses to make gifts of extra millions for the corrupt bosses of the hotel who do everything to break the collective contracts in the sector, citing poor profits because of the general strike of 44 days . He made no provisions to lower the profits of the bekes. It is the perpetuation of the plantation economy that has lasted 400 years. He also addressed the so-called legitimately elected officials, those that guarantee the continuation of the colonial system, who operate the colonial institutions in our country, asking them to strengthen the promotion of France in their geographic regions. Secretary of State for the Colonies was just promoted to the rank of "minister" for the occasion -- the elections in Guadeloupe (she is running for regional office) has only confirmed this. In response to the delegation of the LKP invited by her on Saturday November 14 , under the Monitoring Committee of the Memorandum of Understanding March 4, she gave no response to non-compliance of the commitments made by the State. But she did not forget to make threats. ----- STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR RAYMOND GAUTHIEROT - After the cascade of trials and judicial investigations established just after the general strike of 44 days against exploitation and the signing of the Agreement of 4 March 09; - After the anti-union repression against several trade union leaders, active members of LKP; The French government has decided, through the Attorney of Basse-Terre,
to confirm the 3 months in prison and the fines of 2,000 euros sentenced
in the first trial against R. Gauthiérot. Unable to reverse the movement during the past 11 months against exploitation, in response to the call by Guadeloupean organizations, particularly the trade unions, the French state has decided to use its judicial apparatus of repression. On that point, it keeps its commitments. Travay é Peyizan fully supports Comrade R. Gauthiérot and his union, the UGTG. - We ask our members and supporters to lend their solidarity and stand ready to participate in all initiatives in this direction. - We call on our international contacts, notably with the International Liason Committee of Workers and Peoples and the International Committee against Repression. LETS STOP THE ROAD TO REPRESSION! Abymes, December 8, 2009 ----- SOLIDARITY WITH GUADELOUPE We have been informed that the French government has decided through the Prosecutor of Basse-Terre to confirm three months in prison and a 2,000 euro fine against Raymond Gauthiérot; Through this repression of a union leader, the French government which has failed for 11 months to reverse the movement of the LKP against exploitation, wants to break the moblization of the workers, youth, and people and their organizations. Participants in the panel discussion on December 12 in Paris, attended by the delegation of the LKP l,ed by Jocelyn Lapitre, Bissainte Gilbert and Jean-Philippe Ledreck (Marie Galante), Joss Rovellas of CLKP and Alex Deluge of the POI demand that the French government cease the prosecution against the militant trade unionist Raymond Gauthierot and all leaders of the LKP. Immediate cessation of the trial against militants of the LKP! Immediate cessation of repression! We ask the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples, the ICRC and all democratic and workers' organizations to call on the French government to stop the prosecutions against the union leader R. Gauthiérot and for an end to anti-union repression. The trade union and individual rights of workers, youth and people of Guadeloupe must be respected. Paris, December 12, 2009
|
Open World Conference of Workers