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1er May : five continents, one working class, the same struggle


Source: http://communismeouvrier.wordpress.com
28 april 2012

In Germany, May 1 falls on the eve of the first series of warning strikes in the metal industry for 6,5% wage increase and the end of discrimination against agency workers. Same thing in Morocco where workers will march for freedom of association and against attacks on the right to strike, or, two days after May 1st, there is talk of the start of a strike in the public service.

In Spain, le 1er Mai 2012 is part of the general strike of the 29 mars, against the new labor law which facilitates dismissals, unemployment and austerity measures. In Czech republic, more than 80.000 people demonstrated the 21 April in Prague against austerity measures. Struggles against budget cuts in Britain in fight to preserve the index in Belgium, without forgetting the revolts of the Greek population, it's the same slogan that crosses Europe and beyond the world : we refuse to pay the crisis and the debts of the capitalists.

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The repression continues after the Spanish general strike

On the morning of April 26th, the Catalonian police arrested the Organization Secretary of the CGT-Barcelona, Laura Gómez, while she was on her way to work. They do not like the fact that every time there are more and more of us protesting against the negotiation of labour reform, against the “social pact” and not in favor of it.
taken from anarkismo.net

CGT statement on the arrest of Barcelona Organization Secretary, Laura Gómez

The repression continues after the general strike. This morning [Wednesday April 26th], while she was on her way to work, the Mossos d'Esquadra [Catalonian police] arrested the Organization Secretary of the CGT-Barcelona, Laura Gómez and took her to the police station in Les Corts. The charge by the police is arson and fire damage to the Barcelona Stock Exchange. This and other charges against her have no foundation and are an attempt to create an image of a violent person. Laura does not have a criminal record, and all that the police can cite are peaceful actions during the struggle for labour rights in Barcelona.

The truth – without exaggerating – is that already after the general strike we said, literally, “it is true that members of the CGT burned a couple of papers in a box in front of the Barcelona Stock Exchange, and threw a few eggs, actions that were fully symbolic and carried out openly. That is what the plainclothes police in the crowd must have thought too, given that they did not bother to identify anyone. It is by no means true that it was the first fire, in Mercabarna, in the Zona Franca, etc., there were several fires throughout the night, most of which were started by other unions’ pickets”.

What a coincidence that this arrest occurs on the same day that the famous site for posting photos of “violent” protestors was presented. What a coincidence that the various state establishments, both the Generalitat and the Barcelona Municipality have not stopped pointing at the CGT and have not stopped exaggerating with regard to the CGT. We know that we are not to your liking, nor do we want to be, but we will not apologize for our continued growth. We know you want to make an example of individuals and organizations that refuse to humour the system, but to go from that to persecuting and harassing our members is a big step. The abuse of power that those in authority often fall into against those who think differently is something that we are used to, though great care is taken to hide it.

The CGT believes that there is an attempt to hide the growing number of people attending events by organizations that are not to your liking. They do not like the fact that every time there are more and more of us, protesting against the negotiation of labour reform and against the “social pact”, not for it. The decline in work and social conditions, the increase in injustice, the enormous differences between the rich and poor, all this has without doubt led to greater conflict and now the politicians are looking for excuses to toughen crime laws. It is sickening to see how public money is given to banks, how de facto “tax amnesties” are announced to the benefit of major tax evaders, how permissive the system is in order to allow tax evasion by means of sly practices and economic bureaucracy, how SICAVs [1] which pay nothing are encouraged, while all the while they are seeking to criminalize anyone who disagrees.
Press Office
CGT Barcelona

Translation by FdCA-International Relations Office.

1. Open-ended investment schemes or mutual funds. In Spain they pay 1% corporate tax.

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online Audio: Worker Self-­Management in Comparative Historical Perspective

"New Voices in Labour Studies" took place in Montreal for its 2012 edition. All English and French presentations of that two days of critical presentations and discussions are available for listening online. "Worker Self‐Management in Comparative Historical Perspective" by Kritin Plys from Yale University opens reflexion on common and different historical aspects of last decades' experiences of workers taking over factories in countries all around the world.


New Voices in Labour Studies is a very interesting event that provides a forum for new critical labour scholars. Everyone has now the chance to listen online to what has been said and to the discussions that followed!

On the second day of this bilingual two days of discussion and talks, Kristin Plys from Yale University Sociological Department talked about Worker Self‐Management in Comparative Historical Perspective. There’s an abstract down here that summarizes what you’ll listen.

Since us wobblies aim at building a society where workers have taken over the means of production and run them with direct control, this conference is a very good perspective on recent cases where workers made first steps of that ambitious project.

This study could for sure help us to know more how we can achieve that ultimate goal, if we can bring an industrial unionism perspective and how we can prepare ourselves to fight against cooptation and/or repression by capitalist and socialist states. If you want to share what you think about it, write it in the comment section!

Listen to Worker Self‐Management in Comparative Historical Perspective conference online here!

(it starts after 45 seconds of a quick presentation in French)

Question period that follows also concerns other presentations that took place in the same block

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Abstract
In 2001, with the financial collapse of the Argentine economy, worker self-­‐management was seen as a strategy to keep jobs and maintain wages in the midst of a financial downturn. Worker self-­‐management spread across South America involving 30,000 workers, and in Venezuela alone, 1200 workplaces. Worker self-­‐management succeeded in providing higher wages for workers and higher profits for firms, but these enterprises were forcibly privatized by the state.

Worker self-­‐management is not historically unique. Throughout the 20th century there is evidence of worker self-­‐management across the world. In most of these cases, worker self-­‐management is profitable and provides good wages, but in every instance, workplaces are nationalized or privatized.

The scholarship on worker self-­‐management typically addresses a single case, and therefore, fails to capture the whole picture over geographic space and historical time. To understand the outcomes of worker self-­‐management, we need to look at worker self-­‐management in comparative historical perspective. By comparing 20 cases of worker self-­‐management, I examine the mechanism behind its termination in the periphery and semi-­‐periphery, where worker self-­‐management has its greatest positive impact and greatest structural constraints.

In both market and socialist economies worker self-­‐managed firms were either privatized or nationalized. Worker self-­‐management ends, I argue, because it conflicts with the role of state and therefore is perceived as a threat to political power.

I examine the reasons for state intervention in each case and find three reasons for the state termination of worker self-­‐management:

1) to control labor,
2) to appease capital,
3) threat of financial failure.

I conclude that worker self-­‐management provides important insights about the capitalist state in the global south and it relationship to labor.

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USA: Shaking in the ports of the West Coast

Loren Goldner, DNDF

Nous vous écrivons pour vous informer du sérieux affrontement de classe qui se déroule sur la côte nord-ouest des USA à Longview (Washington) In this small town, an international grain company EGT , jointly owned by three firms ( Bunge North America (American),Itochu (Japanese) a STX Pan Ocean (Korean), a investi 200 millions of dollars (160 millions d’euros) dans la construction d’un nouveau terminal céréalier dernier cri.

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Story of a wildcat strike: Pop-Corn strike at NATAÏS

Here is the first episode of an autonomous workers' struggle waged mainly by women in a Pop-Corn company called Nataïs in a town in Gers, France.. Here's how it started a year ago.

Nataïs
Strike, it's like popcorn

if it gets too hot, it bursts

CNT-Toulouse

In the middle of the woods, the fields, and vines, in the peaceful and hilly landscape of the Gers, the Nataïs company, posed at the crossing of some sinuous departmental roads, made, by the ton, you pop-corn industrial. In such a bucolic context, we would expect peaceful working conditions… Read more →

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Third day of general strike in Nigeria

via communismeouvrier.wordpress.com

AFP, 11 January 2012 :

For the third consecutive day, Nigeria remains paralyzed Wednesday by general strike about to expand into key oil sector, with riots in the center of the country (…).

Two oil workers unions in Nigeria, Africa's leading crude producer, have threatened for the first time since the start of this social movement against the rise in fuel prices, to stop producing crude.

The president of the PENGASSAN union, whose leaders are gathered in Port Harcourt, the oil capital in the south of the country, asked “all production platforms to go into red alert in anticipation of a total production halt”.
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London IWW Cleaners: Workplace Occupation Stoped by Police Threats

[http youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v = vtjsJSBeZ7c&w=560&h=315]

Cleaners at the Guildhall have been holding a sit in and stopping work since the 22nd of December because of mistreatment and intimidation. Early this morning [4th of January] management called the police, who came and intimidated and threatened the cleaners. The cleaners protested that they were holding a completely peaceful sit-in. They finally left due to police threats to drag them out physically.
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England: 24h General strike 30 November

En Angleterre, more than 2,6 millions de travailleurs et travailleuse seront en grève le 30 novembre prochain.

Une mobilisation sans précédant… … pour contrer une attaque sans précédant
Avec son projet drastique de réforme des fonds de retraites des employé-e-s du système publique, le gouvernement a poussé les paramédics, les auxiliaires d’enseignement, les travailleuses de comptoirs alimentaires et les travailleurs sociaux à passer à l’action. Les deux tiers des écoles (20,000) seront fermées et des perturbations sont aussi prévues dans les ports, les aéroports et les hôpitaux. On dit déjà que ce sera la plus grandes grève que l’Angleterre aura connue depuis des lustres.

Pour un professeur, la réforme mise de l’avant par le gouvernement amènerait les changements suivants:

• La contribution mensuelles augmenterait de 50%, en passant de 6.4% at 9.6% d’ici 2014.

• Les enseignants gagnant plus de £40,000 verraient leur contribution augmenter de 64%.

• La pension de retraite d’un enseignant serait calculée à partir de la moyenne des revenues au cours de sa carrière plutôt qu’à partir du salaire à la fin de sa carrière.

• Les enseignants ne pourront plus prendre leur retraite à 60 years, mais devront attendre de le faire à l’âge déterminé par l’état soit 65 ans prochainement, 66 ans en 2020 et par la suite, 68 years.

La tension monte
Du côté des douanes, un ministre a annoncé que l’armée prendra la tâche de vérifier les passeports à la place des travailleurs habituels tout en annonçant que l’offre de réforme des fonds de retraites actuel sera retirée si les syndicats ne l’acceptent pas d’ici la fin de l’année. For his part, la secrétaire générale du National Union of Teachers, a dit que les syndiqué-e-s prévoient des grèves régionales si jamais le gouvernement ne flanchait pas après la manifestation de jeudi.

L’extrême-droite menace les grévistes et le mouvement Occupy
Il est a noter qu’une scission du groupe d’extrême-droite English Defence League (EDL), appelée The Infidels, a déclaré vouloir s’en prendre physiquement aux grévistes. Les dirigeants syndicaux de Unite, disent se préoccuper sérieusement de ces menaces puisqu’un de leur quartier général a été la cible d’une attaque le 10 November. Des évènements récents laissent comprendre que cette scission d’EDL souhaite s’en prendre plus largement aux groupes de gauche, tandis que EDL ciblait uniquement les musulmans. Des membres de ce groupe seraient responsables d’attaques contre des manifestants anti-racistes et des manifestants contre les mesures d’austérité ainsi qu’une tentative d’assaut contre le campement Occupy StPaul et de l’assaut du campement d’Occupy Newcastle où un Indigné a été hospitalisé et d’autres blessés.

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CHINA: strike 7000 Nike factory workers in a, Adidas, New Balance


The blog The Black Cat rioter highlights the story from a Belgian newspaper

(Belgian) More than 7 000 employees of a factory Adidas shoes, Nike and New China Southern Balance went on strike against layoffs and wage cuts and clashes with the police several injured, announced an advocacy group Human Rights.

Dozens of workers were injured on Thursday when police tried to dismantle a roadblock set up by the strikers on the main street of the town near Dongguan, in Guangdong Province, said Friday in a statement the China Labor Watch (CNW), organization specializing in the defense of human rights.

Employees of the factory Yucheng, near Huangjiang, went on strike after the dismissal last month of 18 their managers, interpreted by workers as a sign of upcoming relocation, added CNW headquartered in New York. One of the dismissed executives told China Business News that his departure was part of a proposed relocation of production in Jiangxi province to reduce costs that are higher in the vast manufacturing hub of Dongguan. The strike is the latest in a series of incidents and social movements that erupted in Guangdong, region known as the great workshop of the world which attract tens of millions of migrant workers.

bourgeois press - Le Vif (with Belga), 19/11/2011 at 11 o'clock

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