The Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), members of which are also the servile and subjugated leaderships of GSEE and ADEDY (the employers’ trade unions in private and public sector), is taking place in Athens on 16-19 May 2011.

Except for its name, the ETUC is not and has never been a trade union organization. In reality, it is an instrument of the capital that is used for conveying to the consciousness of the working class the ideological, political and economic elaborations of the multinationals. At the same time, within its scope, this mechanism controls the governmental and employers’ trade unionism that exists in the countries of the European Union. As such, it represents a permanent hindrance against radicalization of the struggle of the workers, against the class-oriented coalition.

The ETUC promotes, supports and propagates (and sometimes even forestalls) every directive drawn up by the organs of the European Union on employment, labor relations and social security. These are directives whose aim is to take away the rights of workers, to promote “flexibility of “competitiveness” and a “medieval labor state of affairs”. The ETUC has supported the Treaty of Maastricht and the strategy of Lisbon.

In its enactment that states “The ETUC calls on the European Union to change its approach and to give more support for the member-states”, the ETUC is in fact insisting on giving the big capital billions of euros, thus asserting claims on behalf of the plutocracy and monopolies.

Further, it demands “the maintenance of the purchasing power of wages and an increase in salaries on the basis of productivity”!!!

The ETUC is trying to persuade us that there are no classes and therefore it has committed itself as its main point of focus on the “social dialogue”.

The ETUC insist on a premise that we, workers and the industrialists are “social partners” and proposes that exploiters and the exploited should march arm in arm in order to overcome the capitalist crisis. In fact, it supports “the Euro Convention” with the aim of strengthening the competitiveness and the profitability of the big capital and thus forcing the workers to pay for the capitalist crisis and its consequences.

It is not accidental that since its establishment in 1973 and until the present day, the ETUC has not organized and mobilized the workers even for one strike.

We should also remind ourselves that the ETUC has always stood on the side of every Euro-American imperialist attack including the recent attack against Libya. We should not forget its hypocritical position on the issue of Palestine and other Arabic peoples.

In order to fulfil its aims, the ETUC has the full support of the Commission. It disposes of enormous financial sources. It has got cadres who form a bureaucratic elite (consisting of social-democrats and opportunists) and are identified with the main choices of the multinationals and monopolies. These bureaucrats have made fortunes out of corrupting the trade unions. No one has any delusions or false beliefs that there will be changes in the ETUC direction as a result of the ETUC Baron General Secretary (John Monks) who will be leaving his position, as has already been decided.

Further, this “organization” emerges as one of the main enemies of the working class.

This caste of “protectors” of the workers’ rights, these crutches of multinationals are unwelcome to our country.

Nowadays, the working class in all the European countries has found itself face to face against a unified and elaborate strategy of the capital of the monopolies. This is a strategy that does not only aim to transfer all the consequences of the capitalist economic crisis onto the shoulders of the working class, but it is mainly trying to ensure the long-term profitability of capital by taking away all labor rights and by increasing the scale of exploitation.

The European Union has been proven to be a union of capitalists. It is a union that forms an alliance together with the International Monetary Fund, the USA and all governments with the aim of profiteering lucratively for the benefit of the capital at the expense of the peoples.

In the countries of  Europe all labor rights (full-time and stable work, social security, working hours, collective bargaining agreements, etc) are being curtailed. All the gains and the fundamental rights of the workers that had been won through difficult struggles, blood and sacrifices are being taken away now with the justification of “exiting the crises”, a crisis born by capitalist anarchy and capitalist super-profits.

This is a deep crisis that points to the historical limits of capitalism, a system that is rotting and giving birth to a massive scale of unemployment, poverty, war and oppression. Unemployment is on the increase and so is the number of illiterates.

Democratic and trade union rights are being restricted under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Today, the need for a Pan-European coordination of all the militant trade unions and all the European working people against the present situation constitutes a basic PRIORITY.

Today, the solution for the trade union movement of Europe lies in the class-oriented line which is the path of disobedience against the European Union, the Capital and the political forces that represent them. The solution is coalition, coordination and common action together with the class-oriented forces, those forces that are rallied in the WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS.

We, the Greek workers, the unemployed, immigrants, women, young people and pensioners express our full solidarity with the workers of all countries that come out and protest.

We express our internationalism with all the European working people who overcome and leave behind the subjugated, bureaucratic trade union leaderships and open new paths in cooperation with new militant and honest trade unions as the organizers of our counter-attack.

The Executive Secretariat