The 13th Congress of the TUI PS&A of WFTU concluded on November 17, 2019 in Parvolia, Larnaca - Cyprus. The Congress elected the new Secretary General of TUI PS, Comrade Zola Saphetha of NEHAWU, South Africa.
Intervention of TUI PS & A of WFTU Vice President
Europe Coordinator
Babis Vortelinos, PAME, Greece
Dear Colleagues,
We are very pleased to welcome the TUI PS Congress and
would like to thank the comrades from Cyprus for the warm hospitality and
excellent organization.
As TUI PS Vice President, and Europe Coordinator, I
will make an report of our action in Europe together with some thoughts and
conclusions that I hope will help in the discussion and planning our activities
for the next period by the new leadership.
Also, since we are just before the arrival of 2020 when
the WFTU will celebrate its 75th anniversary, every trade union must plan and
organize initiatives in time to celebrate the 75 years of WFTU, and its very
important history, always on the side of workers around the world. With
struggles, with sacrifices, with achievements!
The problems faced by workers on every continent, in
almost every country as a consequence of the anti-workers’ attack, are similar to
those we face throughout Europe. That is to say, we are living in conditions
where governments intensify the efforts to privatize key public sectors, to
proceed to layoffs, wage cuts such as in Greece and other European countries. At
the same time the attack against trade unions, trade union rights and freedoms
is escalating. This attack is escalating in all EU countries, by all
governments, whatever their color, whatever name they use (left, right,
progressive, conservative, etc.).
They want workers to work from morning until night all
weeklong; they want to hit trade union action by arresting trade unionists in
Italy, Greece, France, and Turkey, by proceeding to a number of layoffs in
Turkey but also in other EU countries.
Privatizations in all EU countries are on the agenda.
Our International Week of Action against privatizations, organized by the TUI
PS every year aims to better inform and organize employees around the world.
A special issue to be highlighted is the consequences
of imperialist rivalries, the development from imperialist peace to imperialist
war, with interventions, coups, embargoes, etc. especially in the
Euro-Mediterranean region.The initial US-NATO-EU intervention and then Turkey's
intervention in Syria, as well as the situation in Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine,
Cyprus, Libya, etc., where the peoples face the consequences of imperialist
competitions for oil, raw materials, transport routes and spheres of influence;
interventions that are murdering, causing millions of refugees.
Here we must also note the particularities of
Europe, concerningfirst of all the situation of the trade union movement with
the existence of trade union-members of ITUC – ETUC, fully in in the service
and the wishes of employers and governments; trade unions with executives who
are paid hundreds of thousands of euros, who have no relation with the workers,
butrather act as government managers.
The publication of the CVs of the ETUC Secretariat is
not accidental; all this leadership is not ashamed to publish that they are
executives without even a day's work. Rather they are EU officials, professors,
etc. who’s only mission is the subordination of the European unions to the logic
of class peace. This leadership, with huge amounts of money, millions of funds
and a mission, intervenes in all European countries to advance the plans and
goals of the anti-worker, imperialist European Union.
It is important to note the exploitation of the
refugee issue in Europe. The EU, which has plundered the peoples of
Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America, and even today intervenes with
armed forces and other means worldwide. When it comes to Syria, for example, on
the one hand EU countries accepted refugees to exploit them as cheap labor
force, and on the other hand they used the refugee issue to cultivate
xenophobia and racism.
They aim at creating a false confrontation of
so-called “progressive-conservative” forces in Europe. To build supposedly
anti-fascist fronts. In Greece, for example, SYRIZA emerged as a left force,
friendly to refugees and immigrants; at the same time, however, it shared power
for four years with a far-right racist party. Together with the EU, it set up
concentration camps for refugees, which could be compared tomodern-day Dachau,
turning Greece into a giant prison for refugees. In Italy, respectively, the Five
Star Movement shared power with the far-right Salvini, while Macron in France, a
banker himself, who sends police to strike the unions in every demonstration, he
was elected as an “anti-fascist” against Le Pen.
This dirty logic is also promoted by ETUC, who accepts
the EU's reactionary “theory of the 2 extremes”, trying to equate fascism with
communism. At the same time, ETUC has a huge responsibility, as it has bribed,
corrupted and dissolved trade unionists and trade unions by using various
seminars, programs, and enormous rewards. In cooperation with governments, it creates
obstacles in the militant action of European trade unions, attacks the WFTU and
the forces that question the EU and capitalism.
Its stance is a main factor that most of Europe's
confederations have lost millions of members in recent years; that militant unions
with important history have become bureaucratic organizations with no action,
no struggles, no future. That is why ETUC itself in its congressional documents
states that the lack of new members leads to the demise of its trade unions. However,
ETUC is congratulated on this stance by the EU; at its recent conference in
May, where anti-communism and discussions on supporting European monopolies
dominated the debate, the President of the European Commission, Juncker,
offered congratulations to the leadership of ETUC for its action.
I would like to mention here a small example, in
regard to which colleagues from France will certainly have more to say. French
workers have held huge demonstrations in recent years against anti-worker
measures, both during the term of the Macron government and previously of the
Hollande government. They held huge mobilizations, strikes for weeks, demonstrations,
etc. However, ITUC and ETUC, who are supporting the EU and government policies,
not only did not support the workers' struggles, but also did everything they
could to undermine them. As thousands took to the streets, ITUC-ETUC stressed that
what was needed was a stronger social dialogue. That is, to suspend the struggles,
give governments time to pass the measures, forcing the workers themselves to
sign them. That is their role, a dangerous, dirty one; they are the agents of
the EU and the governments within the unions.
In contrast, in these difficult and complex
conditions, the WFTU, its trade union-members in Europe, were at the forefront
of the struggles that took place in each country. In France, Greece, Italy,
Turkey, Spain, Serbia etc.
At the same time, despite the obstacles, despite our small
resources, and weaknesses, we drew strength from our weapons, i.e. our
ideology, class solidarity, and organizational work with faith in the working
class. Our TUI organization in Europe took initiatives. We took action. We supported
struggles. We have new forces.
We have distributed a separate document with our
report and more details so I'll just point out certainkey actions. First, we
worked on the basis of the decisions of the TUIPS Congressin Nepal, and the
decisions of the WFTU Congress in Durban. Based on these guidelines and with
the help of WFTU members and friends in each country, we organized a large Conference
of public-sector trade unions of Europe in Brussels that resulted withan
intervention in the European Parliament.
This action has helped to better document developments
in Europe, to understand and reveal the EU plans against public services which aim
at serving large monopoly groups. We provided arguments, directions, helped make
better known TUI PS' positions and planning. On this basis, we hosted the “Week
of Action” against privatizations in Europe, with a good participation, almost
every year.
However, we believe that our main contribution has
been, to the extent possible, the effort to express solidarity and support for
the struggles of public employeesand others in every country in Europe. With messages,
visits, meetings, protests. We have highlighted the power of Solidarity, a power
that the militant unions have and which can give a huge boost to workers'
struggles.
For this, dear colleagues, we find it very important
to see and discuss what needs to be done to strengthen our TUI, the WFTU, the coordination
of militant unions.
On the one hand, for the rallying of new trade unions,
of workers in each country, it is important to have daily action, interventions
by the trade unions on the issues of workers in each country. On the other
hand, our ideological and political intervention is necessary for this action
to reflect the real conflict in the workplace, which is the conflict between
employers and workers. It is an action to be taken using all forms: brochures,
posters, speeches, a coffee or dinner withour colleagues, as well as strikes,
occupations, seminars, lessons and more. With daily action, with a clear
orientation, a genuine class unity is built that can inspire and rally workers,
unions that do not submit, young unionists who are concerned about the
situation. We also believe that there are opportunities in Europe as well. And
we have a duty to make use of them.
Of course, the organization of the European Union has
specific characteristics and peculiarities that we must take into account in
our discussions, even if we have different views on some aspects.
The European Union was formed by a number of
capitalist states with primary aim protecting, developing and safeguarding
their capitalist economies. This is why the governments in each country make
use of EU measures and decisions to strike at Collective Agreements, to raise
retirement age limits, to privatize, to attack workers' trade union rights. At
the same time, the EU supports imperialist interventions and wars, murders
peoples, imprisons immigrants and refugees, and supports fascist regimes. This
is the EU that ETUC defends, trying to humanize it, to establish a more pro-workers
profile for it. We do not believe that an imperialist organization can become
pro-worker. We need to unveil its measures, its plans, and to fight against it.
With these thoughts in mind, we are conscious of our
duty to do more, to help and to support any militant initiative in Europe that
will strengthen the WFTU, the struggle of trade unions and workers.