It is our honor to participate in this conference of European Trade Unions, thank you to PAME and the WFTU for the opportunity. My local union’s participation in the WFTU is creating some difficulty for our International union, which has recently commanded that we use no further resources of our members to attend WFTU events, despite the democratic allocations of our membership and local Executive Board. Perhaps I am already in violation by now meeting you from our office using the lights and electricity. I also have been personally penalized with a fine of $2000 to “reimburse” the local union for a contribution our members authorized to support the CGT general strike in France last year. Nevertheless we maintain our participation with the WFTU and involvement in this discussion today.
The U.S. approaches 600,000 deaths from the pandemic. There is no public health care under our system of for profit, private health insurance, but circumstances have forced the public access to vaccinations which is now available through government intervention. The availability of vaccine doses races against the variants and mutations that may outpace the vaccine effectiveness. I read that 40% of people in North America now have vaccine access, but only 1% in Africa. This backwardness of medical access defeats its effectiveness even in the wealthy nations. Certainly there must be international access to free and safe vaccination for there to be any long term effectiveness.
The economic crisis which as has been said is magnified by but not caused by the pandemic puts great strain on the new U.S. administration. The 2nd “stimulus” package of nearly $2 trillion has been approved but will need to be paid for, and an infrastructure investment of another $2 trillion is proposed but it is not agreed where will be the source of the funding. This conflict will bring pressure on the capitalist class to pass the cost onto the working class in various austerity measures which themselves will accelerate class antagonism.
We have seen this antagonism clearly through a recent effort to organize a union at an Amazon warehouse facility in Alabama, a former slave state, in the Black Nation south. Amazon brought its full powers to bear to force the local city government to remove traffic lights near the facility to prevent union organizers from engaging workers in their cars at the red light. Also to force the public post office to install a mail drop box in front of the Amazon facility for the “mail in” union ballot, to intimidate workers through surveillance of the mailbox.
A large supermarket chain in Los Angeles was compelled by city government to add $4 per hour hazard pay and responded by closing 5 supermarkets in retribution rather than provide this compensation to its “front line” essential workers.
National antagonisms of white supremacy against the oppressed U.S. Black Nation continue to expose all illusions of democracy. Police terror and murders of Black residents is followed by state attacks on democratic rights to protest and demonstrate. We wait the imminent verdict of jury in the trial of a police officer for the torture murder in broad daylight of George Floyd, while more people are killed by police even during the televised trial.
The unity of working class and oppressed peoples struggles is more evident now than ever. We stand with our comrades in the European Trade Unions and the WFTU. We will be marching May 1 to celebrate International Workers Day under the WFTU flag. The slogan is the struggle continues, la lucha sigue, a luta continua!
