October 3rd 2022: International Action Day of the World Federation of Trade Unions
Under the general slogan:
– We will not pay for the capitalist crisis and the imperialist wars
– Wage and pensions increase Now
– Struggle in solidarity – Internationalism
77 years since the founding of the WFTU on 3 October 1945, the need to strengthen, to escalate the struggles, the demands of workers around the world is a one–way path.
We call on workers and their unions in all countries together to contribute in the organization, to strengthen and massify the unions. The struggles taking place in several countries are our hope and our future. Solidarity is our weapon. We build a wall of protection for the working class and demand a society without exploitation.
As it is known that on the 6th,7th and 8th of May in Rome the 18th World Trade Union Congress took place under the slogan “United we continue for the satisfaction of our contemporary needs. Against Imperialist– Capitalist barbarity”
This historic congress has reiterated the anti–imperialist and antifascist character of the WFTU and its commitment to the struggle for the liberation of the working class from the capitalist shackles.
The world is facing a phase of extreme intensification of political, economic, and military rivalries, aiming at controlling and exploiting the economic resources of our planet.
The peoples pay the cost of the Imperialist rivalries with death, refugees, and also with the deterioration of their living and working conditions.
Τhe dangers and threats to world peace, have dangerously escalated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time the imperialists are attacking the people of Palestine, Cuba, Afghanistan for their own interests, continuing their interventions and sanctions against Syria, Venezuela and elsewhere. That is why it is necessary to continue our internationalist action.
In the period we live in, the economic crises of capitalism follow one another. The pandemic has not only dramatically widened social inequalities but has also been used for new attacks on democratic rights and trade union freedoms.
For us, it is clear that only through the struggles and with organized militant demands the goals of the labor movement are realized and social progress achieved. Struggles for the satisfaction of the contemporary needs of the workers at all levels: salary, employment, security, culture, and mental. To defense of the democratic and trade union freedoms, collective bargaining, and the stable, permanent, and agreements–regulated labor and protect the autonomy of the Trade Unions and their class orientation away from bureaucracy, corruption, and manipulation by the capital and employers.
Against all forms of discrimination based on race, color, religion, or gender of the people.
The today dominant issue on the agenda of trade unions is the dramatic deterioration of workers’ living standards due to the sharp rise in prices. The sharp and uncontrollable increase in prices of all basic necessities, essentially dissipates the purchasing power of wages, which not only are not increased, but in many cases, have been reduced under the pretext of the crisis and the pandemic.
A beacon of hope during this time of pandemic was the struggles and mobilizations of trade unions that stood in the way of anti–peoples’ policies that wanted workers with their mouths shut and health workers voiceless and submissive. Thousands of workers including health workers took to the streets fighting and giving strength and optimism to all to break fear, intimidations and repression. For free and exclusively public health and healthcare for all. Health is a social good, not a commodity, and patents on medicines must be abolished.
–NO WAITING, NO TOLERANCE –
IN THE STRENGTH OF THE ORGANIZED STRUGGLE LIES
HOPE AND PERSPECTIVE
The WFTU is present everywhere for the workers to fight with their class unity, for the interests of their own class, and not to wait for the monopolies, the business interests, and their political representatives to save them and solve their problems.
The WFTU Secretariat calls on all trade unions to organize mass and militant mobilizations ahead of October 3, highlighting the demands concerning health, collective bargaining, trade union freedoms and rights, protection of the environment, elimination of racism and xenophobia, solidarity of the workers.
