The servants of the monopolies, the imperialist mechanisms and the protagonists of QATARGATE, the executives of the notorious INDUSTRIALL, have no place in Greece and Thessaloniki, the city of struggles and workers. IndustriAll Europe is preparing to organize its conference in Thessaloniki on May 31st, in fact in secret, far from the workers, but in the arms and with the funding of various institutions.

     IndustriAll is a dangerous organisation, an enemy of the workers, an organisation that is ‘trade union’ in name only. It is an organisation of bureaucrats, the majority of whom have themselves never worked a day in their lives but from their offices in Switzerland make decisions in support of the anti-workers’ plans of the monopolies and imperialist organisations.

     In conditions of enormous poverty and economic hardship for workers, the rich “conference” of hundreds of thousands of euros of highly paid employees of Brussels is a provocation and those who “host” it have a huge responsibility.

     This also when, the General Secretary of IndustriAll Europe is also the new General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation-ITUC, better known as “the best friend of QATAR, the USA, Israel, EU and NATO”.

     We recall some of the achievements of the leadership of IndustriAll:

     To this day, months after the infamous QATARGATE they still pretend they “saw nothing, heard nothing and said” nothing

     They support the imperialist war in Ukraine and the sacrificing of entire peoples to serve EU-NATO plans. An organisation that is currently raising the issue of “Improving the EU’s defence capabilities”, supporting the military armaments and competitions of the imperialists.

     INDUSTRIALL, worldwide, in the period of the pandemic, attempted to turn trade unions and federations into “internet discussion clubs” without action, while at the same time millions of workers were fighting for their lives and survival.

     In conditions of skyrocketing costs of living for the peoples, INDUSTRIALL, ETUC and ITUC are undermining the workers’ struggles for wage increases, by cultivating the logics of the “resilience of the economy”, by adopting the concepts of “cost” and “competitiveness”, “social peace”, “green growth” of the capitalists’ profits!

     At the recent congress of the ETUC, organization of which IndustriAll Europe is a member, took part the heads of the European Commission, BUSINESSEUROPE and the German Chancellor himself, Olaf Scholz, who declared the new attack of the Employers-Governments-EU against the workers from the podium. This is the message that the General Secretary of the ETUC, who will be the keynote speaker, wants to convey in Thessaloniki.

IndustriAll’s role in intervening and buying off trade unionists is such that alongside its congress there will be a “young trade unionists’ meeting” which will be co-organised by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a foundation funded by the German state to promote the “values” of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The ‘values’ of privatisation, imperialist wars, the smashing of labour rights, the striking of workers’ struggles.

     These “values” have nothing to do with the workers and the alive, militant trade unions of Greece, Thessaloniki and all of Europe who oppose the wars and antagonisms of the imperialists. They have nothing to do with the unions that were in the front line of the struggles, in the workplaces and in the period of the pandemic. They have nothing to do with the unions that organised in Thessaloniki and throughout Greece the biggest, most massive strikes of recent years over the crime in Tempe with the recent train crash. They have nothing to do with the unions that organized and supported the biggest workers’ struggles in Greece in recent years, which achieved historic victories, such as in COSCO, EFOOD, construction workers, etc.

     We call on every honest trade unionist in Europe, who is concerned about the present and the future of the trade union movement, to reflect on where the directions of INDUSTRIALL, the ETUC and the ITUC have led the trade unions and the workers movement. To their disintegration, to their obliteration, to their transformation into employers’ HR offices.

     The struggles that have developed recently in Europe and in the world have not developed following the directions of INDUSTRIALL, ETUC and ITUC, but against them. And against the logic of “class peace”. By organising and mobilising from below, in conflict with the employers and the governments that serve them.

     We express our solidarity with the struggles of the workers of Europe, by strengthening our unions and struggles in every country and sector.

     We strengthen our joint initiatives and actions, international solidarity and coordination with workers’ struggles across Europe. We strengthen our common struggles against the anti-worker offensive by putting the modern needs of workers for real wage increases, permanent and stable work with rights in the front line. We put the slogan into practice

OUR LIVES or THEIR PROFITS