Speech by George Perros, WFTU Deputy Secretary, at the Conference of WFTU Members and Friends in the Arab World in Larnaca, Cyprus.
Comrades,
On behalf of the class-oriented trade unions of Greece, of PAME, we greet the Conference of WFTU members and friends in the Arab World today in Cyprus. We thank our comrades in Cyprus for their hospitality and the organization of today’s conference, which is taking place only a few days before the event for the 80th Anniversary of the WFTU in Paris.
Eighty years ago, out of the ruins of World War II, the WFTU was born. Today, 80 years later, we are living in a period where imperialist antagonisms are intensifying and once again are bringing humanity to the edge of the abyss of a generalized war. On one side we have the USA, NATO, and the EU, and on the other the emerging Eurasian axis led by Russia and China. Their contradictions manifest themselves through wars, interventions, economic sanctions, and government overthrows. The peoples pay the price of these antagonisms with poverty, repression, and blood, from Ukraine to Africa and the Middle East.
The most tragic expression of these rivalries is the genocide taking place every day in Gaza. The murderous state of Israel, with the support of the USA, NATO, and the EU, is murdering thousands of civilians, children, using hunger and thirst as weapons of war. This barbarity and these crimes are not a “conflict” between two equal sides, nor is it about the so-called “right of Israel to self-defense,” as the propaganda machine of the murderous state and its allies tries to present it.
The extermination of the Palestinians and their uprooting from their land are part of the plans for the control of the region, of the energy and trade routes, the markets, and the natural resources. The Palestinian people face not only the state of Israel, but also the imperialists of the USA, EU, NATO, who support it because it serves their interests.
The Arab countries know better than anyone what it means when imperialist interests are promoted: wars, invasions, coups, “humanitarian interventions” that leave behind devastated societies and millions of refugees. The struggle for Palestine is a struggle to break this chain of crimes.
In this reality, trade unions cannot remain spectators. Solidarity with the Palestinian people is above all a class and internationalist duty. It is part of our struggle against the very system that gives birth to exploitation and war. When we speak of internationalist solidarity, we do not mean only statements of support, we mean action. And there are already examples that show the way. These examples must become shared experience. They must reach the workers in every country, in every workplace, to understand that nothing is impossible when we struggle collectively.
In Europe, dockworkers in Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Greece refused to load war supplies destined for Israel and war zones. Thousands of rallies, marches, and multifaceted solidarity events have taken place worldwide in which trade unions have played a leading role. It is important to underline that most of these mobilizations have been carried out despite and against the will of the national confederations, against the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), of which many are members.
This is where the true role of these organizations is revealed: to hold back the struggles, to act as the long arm of imperialism within the workers’ movement. The militant action of the workers themselves exposes in practice the limits and the reactionary character of ITUC, which stands against every attempt at confrontation with governments and monopolies. It has covered up crimes, from Qatar to Ukraine, it has cooperated with employer mechanisms, it has supported anti-labor laws in the name of “competitiveness.” ITUC and its partners insist on the line of “social dialogue” with capital, on accepting the framework of the EU, NATO, IMF.
ITUC and its allies do not even dare to pronounce the words “murderous state.” They keep equal distances between the executioner and the victim, equating the murderousstate of Israel with the Palestinian people who resist. They do not demand an end to economic, military, political relations with Israel. They do not denounce their governments and their monopolies that arm the Israeli army. They maintain close relations with the Israeli confederation Histadrut, the “union” that supports the Israeli army, the occupation, the settlements, and the genocide. The confrontation with it is not only ideological – it is a matter of life for the workers’ movement and the defense of the interests of our class.
This is why the so-called “unity” with such forces is not only dangerous but disastrous for the cause of the Palestinian people. There can be no unity with forces that serve imperialism, that stand against the peoples’ struggles, against the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people. These are forces that legitimize the crimes of the killer state of Israel, speaking of its notorious “right to self-defense”: they massacre children and civilians, turn entire neighborhoods into wastelands, flatten hospitals and schools, bury families alive under the rubble. In Gaza, there are no homes or shelters left, only blood, dust, and the cries of mothers searching for their children under the ruins. This is the horror supported and justified by the forces of compromise with imperialism, and that is why there can be no unity with them.
Such “unity” does not strengthen but weakens the struggle of the Palestinian people. It condemns it to defeat, because it cultivates illusions that the same mechanisms that support occupation and genocide can supposedly stand by the side of the Palestinians. If the workers’ movement submits to this line, then the people of Palestine are left alone against their oppressors. They lose their strongest weapon: international class solidarity. Unity with such forces means disarming the movement, blocking real initiatives of solidarity, and finally strengthening imperialist influence within the workers’ ranks.
The cause of Palestine, like that of every struggling people, can advance only with a clear, uncompromising stance against imperialism, with unity that stands firmly on the ground of class struggle. The unity we need is not with those who justify occupation and massacres, with those whose mission is to tie the movement to the chariot of the monopolies, the EU, NATO, which promote their plans in the Middle East. Real unity is class unity, the unity of workers who struggle against capital and its governments, against imperialism and war, at the side of peoples who fight for life and their rights. This requires trade unions free and independent from governments, employer mechanisms, and imperialist organizations. Trade unions that do not submit to the line of class collaboration, but organize the struggle from below, with the interests of the working class as their compass. Only in this way the trade union movement trulycan rise to its mission, express the strength and will of the workers, become a support and a comrade-in-arms for every people fighting for freedom and justice.
In these conditions, the tasks of the new Regional Office of the Middle East acquire special importance. It is not enough to record developments; we must lead in shaping militant responses, initiatives, in strengthening the bonds among unions, in exposing the real causes that generate wars, poverty, unemployment, and refugee flows.
TheRegional Office must become a center of coordination and action for the whole region. It must project decisively the positions of the WFTU, expose the role of the imperialists, contribute to exposing the role of ITUC and the current that seeks to subordinate the movement to the needs of capital and its governments. It must organize information campaigns and mobilizations, encourage solidarity initiatives with the Palestinian people, strengthen joint action of workers beyond borders and religions.
It must become a tool that pulls workers and unions away from the influence of governmental–employer trade unionism, helps them stand on their own feet, organize real struggles with class orientation, cultivate confidence in workers’ strength, break fear and fatalism.
And of course, it must practically support unions in every country that are fighting against employers and governments: helping them in the struggles for collective agreements, for wage increases, for health and safety protection at work, for public and free education, for the right to culture, to leisure and recreation. Because all these are rights of the working class, not “costs” to be cut for the profits of monopolies.
The new Regional Office has the mission ahead of it to become a reference point for every union that wants to fight, to get informed, to coordinate. To give courage to workers who today live under conditions of terror and repression, to show them that there is another way, the way of class struggle, of internationalist solidarity, of confrontation with the system of exploitation.
Comrades,
the times we live in demand courage, a clear orientation, and action. We cannot afford to wait. Strengthening organization and solidarity is the duty of the hour.
In closing, we want to send a message of optimism: the peoples can stop wars, they can break the chains of exploitation. They can build a world without wars and poverty.
With class unity, with internationalist solidarity, we can win!
Long live the WFTU!
Long live the internationalist solidarity of the peoples!
