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Executive Council Supports Aid to Chile, Haiti and Backs Mexican Workers
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The AFL-CIO Executive Council yesterday called on the world community to provide quick, no strings attached aid to Chile after the massive earthquake Feb. 27. The union leaders also reaffirmed strong support for the relief efforts in Haiti and condemned the Mexican government’s attempts to break the union at Grupo Mexico mines. Executive Council members met March 1-3 in Orlando.
In its statement on Chile, the council said aid should be provided without any requirements of repayment. The council also urged that all aid and reconstruction projects in Chile should respect living wage standards and fundamental labor and trade union rights. Click here to read the entire statement.
We must not forget that much still needs to be done in Haiti, where people are still recovering from the devastation of an earthquake and aftershocks nearly two months ago, the council said. The council statement on Haiti saluted all the union members who had made financial contributions and donations of essential supplies or are serving as active volunteers in the aid efforts.
But real change can only come if we dedicate ourselves to a long-term recovery in Haiti, the council added:
We urge the U.S. government and the international community to adopt a recovery and reconstruction strategy that strives to assist the Haitian people to attain sustainable long-term economic independence and ensure a commitment to economic development, with Haitian workers at the center.
The council condemned a ruling by a Mexican appeals court that allowed the Grupo Mexico mining company to fire 1,200 striking workers, members of the National Union of Mine and Metalworkers (SNTMMSRM), at its Cananea copper mine. In its statement, the council said:
This decision is only the latest in a series of actions intended to destroy the SNTMMSRM. These attacks are just part of a broader pattern of attacks on democratic union organizing in Mexico. The AFL-CIO calls on the Mexican government to end the repression of democratic unions, allow workers the right to organize and restore the right to strike.
Check out all the approved statements from the council meeting here.
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2 Comments
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Heres a new idea:how about sending some of that aid back to the membership,that has obviously overpaid with the amount of surplus the AFL-CIO seems to have to throw away.Dont get me wrong,Im all for the common good of all,but we members are really struggling to pay our dues and desperately need some assistance.
The severe economic conditions being imposed upon European workers are similar to those being experienced by millions in the U.S. But the European workers refuse to be passive and demand through massive strikes that action be taken now. This is a summary article from the World Socialist Web Site , link here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/pers-m05.shtml
The European strikes and the trade unions
Ulrich Rippert
5 March 2010
Last week was marked by two significant developments. A strike wave hit Europe as workers in a series of countries began to demonstrate their opposition to the austerity measures demanded by the European Union and the banks.
In all countries, the trade unions responded by isolating and suppressing the workers’ actions and closing ranks with their respective governments and the European financial elite. The central concern of the unions was to prevent the working people of Europe from uniting in a common struggle against their common enemy—the European bourgeoisie and its agents in the national governments and the European Union.
On Monday of last week, 4,500 pilots employed by Germany’s biggest airline, Lufthansa, went on strike. On the same day, air traffic controllers in France began strike action, while workers at Total’s oil refineries continued their national walkout. In Great Britain, flight attendants at British Airways voted by over 80 percent in favor of a strike.
On Tuesday, large demonstrations were held in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia protesting the cost-cutting measures introduced by the Socialist Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
On Wednesday, some 2 million workers took part in a general strike in Greece that brought the country to a halt for 24 hours. All flights into and out of Greece were cancelled when air traffic controllers joined the strike.
In the Czech Republic, the unions announced that public transport would be brought to a standstill starting March 1, and Portuguese unions prepared for a one-day public sector strike on March 4 to protest a freeze on wages.
The British Independent newspaper warned that the eruption of strikes and protests heralded the biggest wave of rebellion “experienced on the continent since the revolutionary upheavals of 1968.”
The unions, which had called the actions under immense pressure from below, hoped thereby to allow the workers to let off steam while they worked to contain working class resistance and buy time for their respective governments.
When the German pilots’ union, Cockpit, realised it was standing at the head of what could become a massive European-wide movement, it called off its planned four-day strike after just one day.
At the same time, Germany’s two biggest trade unions, the engineering and industrial union, IG Metall, and the public service union, Verdi, agreed to extended contracts for their 5 million members that will impose a cut in real wages.
In France, the Stalinist-dominated General Confederation of Labor (CGT) called off the national strike against Total, capitulating to the company’s plans to close its facility in Dunkirk.
In Britain, the Unite union assured British Airways that it would not strike during the Easter holiday period and would restrict any industrial action to isolated strikes.
Both of the main trade union federations in Greece, the private sector GSSE and the public sector ADEDY, support the social democratic PASOK government of Prime Minister George Papandreou and have issued statements declaring the readiness of their members to make sacrifices to ease the state’s debt crisis.
Three days after the general strike in Greece, the Czech unions called off the planned strike by public transport workers.
Definite political conclusions must be drawn from the treacherous role of the unions from the very outset of a new movement of working class struggle in Europe and internationally.
Under conditions of the globalisation of capitalist production, the trade unions, which are wedded to a nationalist perspective, are incapable of defending even the most basic interests of the working class. They have been transformed into direct agencies of the corporate-financial elite and the state.
In the boom period of the last century, the unions were able, despite their defense of capitalism and their national programmes, to extract limited wage concessions and social reforms, but this period has long since ended. The gains that workers were able to win through the unions have proved to be temporary. In these old organisations, workers now face enemies no less implacable than the employers and the state.
Even before the outbreak of the current economic crisis, the unions had supported the European Union and the introduction of the euro. They hailed the reintroduction of capitalism into Eastern Europe 20 years ago, and sent their functionaries to the East in order to help keep wages there low, thereby assisting the European ruling elite in driving down wages in the West.
The international banks that unleashed the crisis are now determined to make the working population foot the bill for their speculative losses. With working class opposition growing, the unions are concerned above all with blocking the international unification of workers and their development in a socialist direction.
The unions’ present role is the culmination of a long history. Already 100 years ago they stood in the right wing of the workers’ movement, and openly sided with reaction during periods of revolutionary class struggle.
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Read the full article and conclusion here: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/pers-m05.shtml