Comrades,

First, I would like to extend thanks to PAME (the All Workers Militant Front, Greece) for organizing this Pan-European Trade Union Teleconference and for inviting us to participate at this critical time in an exchange of our experiences as trade unionists and labour activists.

In recent years we have experienced a major assault against the trade union movement and the rights of workers across the European Union. The introduction of the Industrial Relations Act 1990 in Ireland represented a major inroad into trade union autonomy and reflected a growing trend of intervention in the organisation of a trade union’s internal affairs. This legislation has been used to attack and obstruct industrial action by workers.

A year ago today, workers in Ireland who were employed by Debenhams were notified by email that they were being made redundant. For an entire year they have been fighting for their rights. When the employer refused to pay a fair redundancy package, as negotiated by their trade union, workers took to the streets in protest at the employer’s actions and the government’s failure to act and the workers then took action to prevent stock being removed from stores.

The workers’ resistance continues. Their determination to fight remains strong despite the government’s attempts to use Covid legislation and increased repressive police powers to harass them in a vain attempt to break their resistance. They have maintained a presence outside 11 stores, have organised protests and campaigns winning support from the people. I would ask those participating in today’s teleconference to send a message of solidarity to the Debenham’s workers currently struggling for their rights in Ireland.

We have witnessed strike action and mass mobilisations across Europe. There have been rail

strikes in Finland, the strike of the Arcelor Mittal workers in Taranto, Italy, the protest by tourism workers across Greece and the massive demonstrations organised by PAME, to mention but a few. In many cases the Covid legislation has been deliberately manipulated to interfere in workers’ disputes with their employers and to curtail industrial action. Of course, while the EU, governments and employers collaborate to cut jobs and worsen conditions of employment, the capitalist system still expects workers to pay the price of the pandemic.

In Ireland Retail & Distribution workers are demanding action by the government to tackle low pay and insecure work worsened by the conditions of the Covid 19 pandemic. While increases in the pension age are taking place in most capitalist countries, the 2011 Social Welfare and Pensions Act set Ireland on course to have the highest pension age in the OECD in 2028, despite having the youngest population in Europe. Increasing the pension age represents a major attack on the social rights of working people.

The political line of the European Union and its capitalist member states has inflicted immense suffering on workers and their families and committed itself under the mantra of “competitiveness” and “flexibility”, to an all-out attack on workers and their rights. The judgments of the European Court of Justice in the Laval, Viking and similar cases have further undermined workers’ rights by attacking the right to strike and wage agreement.

The capitalist system, built on exploitation and oppression, promotes a regime in which low- pay and precarious employment are predominant; where workers are often expected to work “for free”; where hard won work-place rights are dismantled; where public assets are privatised for private profit; where wages have been falling in real terms; where the bargaining power of labour is diminished; where the gender pay gap continues and where restrictions are placed on trade union freedom.

From the start of the pandemic it became clear that many workers delivering essential services were being put at risk by their employers who were refusing to adhere to public health guidelines on social distancing and personal protection measures, including the failure to provide personal protection equipment. It was also clear that a number of companies, whose businesses were not essential in the current crisis, were continuing to trade and were putting the lives of workers at unnecessary and unacceptable risk.

Many thousands of workers employed in non-unionised firms were at the mercy of employers who placed the relentless pursuit of profit above the health, well-being and life of workers and their families and communities. Some of the most essential workers were on minimum wages, zero hours contracts and in precarious employment. Meanwhile their employers were amassing huge profits.

The new problems created by the Covid-19 pandemic have to be considered in context of the underfunding of public health infrastructure and the commercialisation and privatisation of

health and social care in the pursuit of profit which fulfils the privatisation agenda of the European Union. The depth of the crisis revealed the deep structural problems of the capitalist economy.

Locally and globally, capitalism is already preparing the ground for the world after Covid-19. Rather than improving pay and conditions for those workers who have stood in the frontline the capitalist class is moving to further privatise and profit from public and personal health; to cut back on public housing and education funding; to undermine social security; to place even greater restrictions on trade unions; to renew the attack on wages; to limit the minimum wage, extend precarious employment and to attack and further dilute workers’ rights.

It is the task of the trade unions to strengthen the struggle of the working class, to ensure that the working class does not pay for the crisis, to demand the improvement of the public health and social care system; the protection of all workers and the introduction of all necessary safety measures; full compensation for workers affected by the pandemic, including continuing pay; the rejection of mass layoffs and redundancies; resistance to all efforts to further diminish workers’ rights together with additional protections and supports for workers, the vulnerable, poor and homeless. We must condemn and resist the physical attacks and repressive measures against workers and their organisations.

It is important to expose the agenda of the EU, the governments of the member states and the employers which act in the interests of capital. The pandemic has further revealed the contradictions and failings of capitalism which have exacerbated the effects of this crisis and which demonstrably cannot meet the needs of the people. This system has failed and must be abolished. A better future which protects the interests of workers and their families can only be constructed in a socialist society.

Thank you.

Dear Comrades

First of all, I send you the fraternal greetings of all the CGT unions of the chemical industries in France as well as those of the unions affiliated to the TUI Chemistry Energy.

I address special thanks to the comrades of PAME for the organization of this conference.

All the speakers have already underlined that we are facing a major crisis of capitalism, but resistance is very present, everywhere in the world and must be amplified.

One of the classic strategies of mass manipulation is to entertain and even infantilize public opinion. We water our information time with unimportant news, such as Macron’s strategy in terms of huge vaccination centers or variable geometry confinement. The world reduced to these small events worthy of a People magazine seems quietly subject to the vagaries of the virus, and of a capitalist system which supposed to do what it can to limit the damage. However, since the financial crisis of 2008 until today with the systemic crisis of 2020 and attributed to Covid, the reality is, unlike lethargy, that of social activism around the world, strikes and of mass mobilizations in opposition to the status quo. Almost everywhere, these strikes, mass demonstrations and mobilizations have been the result of economic change, upheaval and distress, sometimes exacerbated by war.

In 2019, 47 countries, almost a quarter of all nations, experienced major civil unrest. These protests swept across all regions of the world and were joined by new mass mobilizations underway in 2020, notably in Belarus, Thailand and the Russian Far East; mass strikes in Indonesia; as well as the resurgence of Black Lives Matter in the United States and much of the world, riots in Senegal, etc.

Since the 2008 crisis, there have been a series of huge general strikes – Guadeloupe and Martinique, India, Brazil, South Africa, Colombia, Chile, Algeria, Sudan, South Korea, France, the teachers’ strikes of 2018 – 2019 in the United States and many others – as well as waves of strikes that helped bring down heads of state – Tunisia, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Sudan, Lebanon, Algeria, Iraq.

Some mass strikes have taken place amid larger mobilizations in the streets or squares around the world, such as those in Hong Kong, Chile, Thailand, Ukraine, Lebanon and Iraq.

Between 2010 and 2018, there were 64 general strikes in the European Union, almost half of them in Greece. More broadly, the ILO, taking into account only 56 countries, estimates that there were 44,000 work stoppages between 2010 and 2019, mainly in the manufacturing sector.

In China, the China Labor Bulletin recorded some 6,694 strikes between 2015 and 2017 in a wide variety of sectors, including manufacturing.

In these movements, whether students have taken a pioneering role or not, and professionals and middle-class politicians have taken over the leadership, most of these revolts are primarily working class revolts within its composition, and that to a large extent they used the traditional weapon of the mass strike.

In many developing countries, these workers have organized in their neighborhoods and through national unions, informal worker associations, migrant workers’ organizations and cooperatives, as well as in workplaces, to invade streets and squares, as workers have done for generations. As Rosa Luxembourg said, they have organized themselves into “a multiplicity of the most varied forms of action” and into organizations, often through mobilizations made possible by social networks.

And yet, for lack of clarity on the demands for a change of society, nowhere have these strikes sought to gain political power for the workers themselves or following a program approaching socialism. Nowhere were the workers organized for such goals. These strike movements are the breeding ground from which a socialist orientation can develop, but on condition that the workers endow themselves each time with a capable and efficient organization.

The economic crisis attributed to Covid is an explosion whose effects will be lasting. We now understand that there will be no return to the “abnormal” previous situation, not that this means that we are heading for better days, on the contrary, capitalism, as a system, does and will do resistance, and even seek to take advantage of the crisis to strengthen its supremacy.

There are two main methods to restore the rate of profit, that’s the main goal of capitalism : the most modern consists in increasing productivity faster than wages, in particular by generalization of various forms of automation, digitization, robotization, like Amazon or Uber, via teleworking. But in this case, maintaining high productivity over the medium term requires companies to be able to both invest and innovate, and therefore spend on research and development. But the list of companies that are taking advantage of the crisis to cut their engineering, research and management workforce is long. “Among others Sanofi, Total, Michelin here, but also Renault, Danone, Nokia, etc. We therefore remain in a short-termist logic of capital to restore the accounts for the shareholders.

The most immediate solution, and this is the second major method to restore the rate of profit, is obviously to lay off workers, which is already being implemented in France, with the multiplication by 3 in 2020 of layoff plans, including in companies that are not affected by the crisis.

The second solution is to lengthen working hours, bypassing the law or not.

These anarchic measures, taken by companies, will result in rising unemployment, which always has the effect of modifying the balance of power to the detriment of workers, who, like job seekers, say they are ready to make “concessions” to either keep a job for the former, or find a job for the latter. The bourgeois state of course supports this policy, it maintains a regressive reform of unemployment benefits and envisages a law which would remove the priority given to the payment of wages in the event of company bankruptcy.

If we limit ourselves to discussing all this, the illegitimate or too violent nature of the reform of unemployment insurance, or of pensions, or even to only organize the fight against these reforms, the question will not be whether profit must be restored, but how quickly. However, as during the violent attacks during the establishment of the 35-hour week in France, we will see the resurgence of the spirit of revenge of the dominant classes, determined to erase everything that the crisis has imposed on them, which is already implicit in some speech.

Nothing is intangible or written in advance, everything will depend on the balance of power. It is urgent to adopt positions that make the link between immediate resistance and the project of social transformation. In terms of employment, we must talk again about the reduction of working time and put forward the requirement to guarantee employment and income, whether wages, pensions or social minima.

We see it, we know it, the problem is not the conjuncture but the system in which we are locked up today. The capitalist system. Our duty is to transform all the punctual struggles for the defense of our rights into a global struggle for a real change of society.

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!

On behalf of The union of workers in Stockholm´s metro (underground) salutes this conference with radical, class-oriented unions and we thank PAME for the invitation to participate in this conference. In this conference are participating from our union, me and Ann Hellstenius, member oof the board of the union.

In Sweden also the last period we have different kind of attacks both from the capitalists and the government. The socialdemocratic, the so called left-green, government with the contribution of the parties of center and liberals are attacking many parts of the labor rights.

The corona pandemic situation is the alibi that they wanted to intensify their attacks.

The state gave hundreds of billions Swedish crowns to the big companies to support their profits and at the same time, nearly nothing for the working class and the small enterprises. In many cases unions and the health and safety committees demanded measures for the safety and the health of the working class (like masks, hand alcohol, to not work many people together etc). The Swedish state is talking about the personal responsibility meanwhile nearly nothing happening from the state organs to control the situation in working places and the public transports. Today we have more than 13.788 human beings dead in a population about as Greece. The game with the different companies which want to sale the vaccine keeps on and only 7,9% of the population got vaccine up to now.

Notice that Sweden wasn’t prepare for a situation like this because they privatized ALL the medical industry (didn’t have even a reserve for medical materials), privatized a big part of the health care and dismissed a lot of personal between 1990 up to now. 1990 had Sweden more than 2000 places for Intensive care and today normally are 500 and in some cases increased to 680 places.

Back to labor rights we got a new law last year that decrease the already limited right to strike. Maybe you know that in Sweden only the federations have the right to declare a strike (not the local unions) and only between when a collective agreement finished up to a new shall be agreed. Before and after this is not allowed to strike except some exceptions (as solidarity actions etc). Now its not allowed to strike about anything else except a collective agreement and this only in what demands you informed the bosses a certain time before! Any other action is prohibited.

Last year also the retirement age decided to be at 68 and in a couple of years at 69 and of course the pension lower.

Many of the trade unions in Sweden didn’t react at all or they΄re were positive in both laws. Only some local trade unions organized protests but up to now didn’t help to gather the majority of the working class.

Now the new attacks from both the capital and the state are to privatize the rest of the housing that is state property and to introduce what they call “market rent”, for the people to pay. The capital wants to increase their profit by all means. The state is coming also to privatize more sectors like the education, health etc and they want this year pass a law that make it possible for the employers to dismiss workers much easier and to not have even the right to appeal against it!

We are going to protest with symbolic actions (because of the restrictions) on the 1th of May, the Workers May day! We are going to keep on fighting with all our comrades, the working class in Sweden, Europe and all the world.

We need coordination to fight for our rights in generally and the claims that are standing in PAMEs introduction document

Contemporary working and living conditions with rights. Fixed daily work time and reduction of

working time. Hands off the 8hour/workday

Abolition of the antiworkers’ laws and reforms that were promoted and imposed the last years

Free collective bargaining without any state involvement, Collective Bargaining Agreements with significant increases in wages and securing important rights.

Protection of the health of all people. Protection of the health and safety of workers under the

responsibility of the state. We fight for Exclusively Public and Free Healthcare with immediate requisition of Private Health Centers.

Measures for the safe operation of all levels of education with protection measures for the health of pupils, students, teachers

Ensuring the free and unhindered action of trade unions and trade unionists, against the escalation of repression and authoritarianism. The state and business groups have no right to interfere in the unions.

Comrade greetings

Thank you for organising this meeting and for sending us the working documents in advance.

Today we will give you a quick overview of the situation in France. We are all living in similar situations because we are all living with the consequences of the political choices of our governments which are subordinated to the European Union.

As you know, we are not speaking on behalf of the CGT Confederation but of our CGT departmental union.Our confederation has made choices to support liberal policies and in particular the European recovery fund.

And yet, as we know, the European recovery fund will be accompanied by additional austerity measures, increasing the debt, and condemning our public services, whose destruction and dismantling will accelerate. The intervention of a State strategist for the recovery and planning of our industrial production will be even more impossible than today.

The transformation of capitalism in crisis has begun, using ecology as a screen for their policies of capital accumulation. The capitalists have found a new opportunity for profit and distribution of roles to the countries: some for industries, others for services…accentuating relocations and the setting in competition of the workers.

In France, their objective is to dismantle the sector of energy, chemistry and petrochemistry, to achieve the deindustrialisation of our country.

So, over the last year, we have had more than 800 lay-off plans in the country. Social rights are being destroyed : theft of paid holidays, increase in working hours, for example. Repression is the corollary of these policies. Adding to an already very repressive legal arsenal, the members of Parliament have just adopted the “Global Security Law” allowing the government to have a free hand in the use of police and legal violence.

It is in a context of exploding unemployment affecting about 19% of the population that the reform of unemployment insurance is imposed, depriving or lowering the benefits of nearly 1.7 million workers.

In the face of all this, the workers are resisting, with strikes and hard and long struggles. They suffer from the refusal of our confederation to organise and coordinate struggles, to lead a global response.

The CGT 13 proposes to the workers in struggle and to their CGT organisations to federate and to build together the conditions to achieve victory. We have before us in a short time 3 federative dates:

• On April 23th, a national day of struggle against the reform of unemployment insurance, which we are building in the department linked to the artists who have begun a long-term struggle, with the occupation of theatres since 1 month now.
• The 1st of May, which is our common international date, must be given a repercussion equal to the We could raise common slogans and give May Day its internationalist side.

On 20 May, when we will hold a national meeting on the Gardanne Thermal Power Plant (where our comrades are leading a hard struggle and are on strike against the closure while carrying an alternative project) with the CGT unions mobilised in the country, to prepare the fightback together.