First of May 2006:

AGAINST THE CLASS-INJUSTICE: DIRECT ACTIONS AND SOLIDARITY!

When approaching the First of May 2006, we see that the capitalist powers are hunting every part of the globe for increased profits and market control. The capitalists want to “liberate” themselves from obligations towards decent work conditions, payment and social “wages” as pensions. But in 2006, 120 years after the fight for the 8th hour day in Chicago, we must not forget that capitalist development not only creates oppression, but also revolt!

At the First of May 1886 workers were striking for the 8th hour day, and the 4th of May a bomb was thrown as a provocation. The blame was put on the anarchists. Parsons, Fischer, Engel, Spies, Lingg, Schwab, Neebe and Fielden were arrested. Of them Parsons, Fischer, Engel and Spies were hanged. Lingg died in prison. These Haymarket Martyrs have since belonged to the international proletariat, and the universal celebration of May Day commemorates these crimes perpetrated by defenders of "free enterprise" in the United States.

In Europe there is going on a campaign that has a character of coordinated attacks against workers rights: In France students and workers have been protesting the Contrat Premiére Embauche (CPE), which during a two-year trial period intended to fire workers under age 26 without cause. In Britain it has been a general strike against cuts of the pensions, and in Spain there are protests against a new Labour Law, to mention some countries where the many attacks are going on.

A main global trend is that permanent jobs are made to temporary ones, and that the permanent ones are less protected. The OECD uses as many as 22 indicators to compare the level of employment protection in different countries. So the attacks come from the difficulty of dismissal, procedures, and pay for no-fault individual dismissals in regular contracts, to all the variety of temporary work the employers can impose in the work place.

One untold indicator of employment protection of the OECD, is the ability of the workers to fight back. It is not a coincidence that so many disputes are about union busting and sacking of union activists. In Barcelona there is for example going on a CNT-AIT strike against the firm Mercadona, and the workers need all the solidarity they can get: Three union delegates’ readmission, for the improvement of the work conditions, and against pursuits are the reasons of the strike!

Union busting is a part of today`s “race to the bottom”, which means cutting of wages and social welfare, and attacks on work conditions and rights. If we look at China, which is considered to be the bottom of the race, the minimum wages are very low. China has a decentralized wage system where the “free zones” are competing to attract investments. These zones are using migrant workers from the countryside with a pass-system of temporary work permits.

This pass-system regulates the flow of workers, letting in more when needed and driving them out when they are too many. When workers have accidents, get ill and/or become too old by age, they are sent back to the countryside. Almost all of the Chinese female migrant workers are in their late teens or early twenties, and they are not allowed to bring their families with them. They are by this no “obstacles” of having extremely long working days and weeks. Union organizing is strictly forbidden.

The Chinese example shows that there is no end of the “race to the bottom” and Chinese cheap labour is also an ”export product” abroad through Temporary Work Agencies. Besides the agencies function of dividing the work forces, they have increasingly an international and political impact and Israel, for example, uses labour from the Philippines, Eastern-Europe and China instead of Palestinians because of “security” reasons. Israeli employers confiscate the passports of for example the Chinese workers, to avoid any organizing and protests.

Multinational corporations have spread their factories around the world, constantly shifting them to low cost producers in Asia or Latin-America. New technology has facilitated faceless, speculative stock, bond and currency traders sitting behind computer screens moving money and investments to all parts and fields of the globe. Raw materials, production and markets are often situated at different places, and the system is by this sensitive for workers actions and unstable political conditions.

Increased competition and rivalries between capitalist powers make it necessary to control all the production and transport chains of vital importance. This was shown clearly on January 1st 2006, when the Russian state company Gazprom stopped gas supplies to Ukraine after the latter refused to pay the price demanded. The Russian-Ukrainian gas conflict affected gas supplies to the countries of the European Union, which receive a total of 66 percent of their imports from Russian gas fields.

As a part of the militarization of the energy policy, we see that US ships are patrolling the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea along with other routes to the US and its allies.US troops are guarding gas- and oil pipelines which are spread around the globe from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Georgia, the training of personnel in Nigeria and Angola, and to the repressive “Plan Colombia” where protection of oil interests is central to gain control of a strategic region..

The most dangerous scenario for the USA is a grand coalition of China, Russia and Iran. Putin has stated recently that Russia will not endorse UN sanctions against Iran unless there are proof that the nuclear technology is used for military purposes. Both Russia an China have taken measures against US aid to nongovernmental organizations (NGO`s), having in mind the recent “colour revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

And no-one of these countries have forgotten the report to the US Congress January the 8th 2002 which outlined that Pentagon needed to be prepared to use new tactical nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. Since then, Iraq has been invaded and occupied, Russia and China have fears of being encircled by "colour revolutions", and Iran is threatened. Every means available will be used by the US against Iran, and regime change is on the agenda.

A regime change would secure the US access to the large oil and gas fields, but just as important, the flow of oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, and by this the worlds most important transport route of energy. And a look at the map shows that “a new Iran” would facilitate to pipe gas and oil from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf and by this avoiding, or being less dependant on, long and vulnerable routes through Russia, Caucasus and Afghanistan.

An additionally, Iran has since 2003 been considering of launching an Oil Stock Exchange trading oil in euros. It has been postponed several times, but if it is implemented, it will send chocks into the financial world. Taking into account the huge US deficits and weak dollar and the aggravation of costs due to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan etc., a successful Iranian Stock Exchange would be a major threat.

The petrodollar trading is one of the foundations of the US economical hegemony, and in the battle of energy it is a question of either to control, or being controlled. The US has also in a higher degree got serious concerns about the fact that vital components for technology as computers, missiles, satellites and airplanes are produced by countries (as China) that can challenge the United States.

We live in an increasingly more desperate and militarist phase of capitalism. The “anti-terrorist laws we see worldwide are used against demonstrations, strikes, and generally against everyone that wants to fight against the social, economical and military wars of the capitalists. The reformist union concept of “partnership” between capitalist and workers is not only failing, it is a suicide for the working class in times when our enemies are conducting a permanent war against the working class and its rights.

Rivalries abroad go on with attacks on the “enemy within”, and the capitalists and the states need predictable opponents being dependent on the legal framework, structures, and subsidies. All in order to direct, control, reduce, split and eventually crush the organisations. Against the increasingly assimilation of traditional factors belonging to the opposition such as the workers movement at a cultural, political, unionist and social level, the IWA refuses to integrate our free associations into the capitalist system.

There are no equal parts when the capitalists buy, sell and cut the prices of labour, while we as workers must obey. Capitalism makes “divide and conquer” systems in order to let us fight against ourselves concerning different races, sex, nationalities etc. But what governments and employers want is not necessarily what they get. While capitalism creates the basis for division, it also creates the conditions for workers direct actions and solidarity.

Solidarity means mutual aid and has no borders. The only true “job-security” we can rely on comes from ourselves, and the solidarity and actions we are able to make. Direct action at work means strikes, go-slows, working-to-rule, occupations and boycotts, and the actions are taken when it is convenient for us as workers, not when the binding contracts and legislation permits it.

The direct actions, propaganda and solidarity must be based on our own strength, not on class collaboration, as e.g. union elections to enterprise committees. Economic independence can only be secured by members fees, not on subsidies from the state. Federalism means that we do not build centralist structures and funds managed by paid union professionals.

Contrary to the reformist unions, the International Workers Association (IWA-AIT) is fighting on an economical, social, cultural, and anti-militarist level. 70 years after the Spanish Revolution in 1936, we make a call to speed up the actions against the class-injustice in order to replace the capitalism and state by the free federation of workers free associations - libertarian communism!

Against the class-injustice: Direct actions and solidarity!

Long live the IWA!

Oslo the 24th of April 2006
IWA-Secretariat