DERRY RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Derry Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 28 January 2023
Where: Pilots Row Centre, Rossville St, Londonderry BT48 6LP
The following leaflet was distributed by our comrades in Rome on the demonstration of the Alcoa workers of Sardinia against the closure of the last aluminium smelter in Italy. The demonstration was not encouraging in that it was a dominated by corporatism, sectionalism and Sardinian separatism (many of the workers wore nationalist insignia). The demonstration was marked by the way in which both the unions and the DIGOS (state security police) with some help from Fascists within the Alcoa workers sought to prevent anyone joining the demonstration in solidarity with the Alcoa workers. The DIGOS threatened to arrest anyone who tried to “infiltrate” (the word used by both union spokesmen and the police) the demonstration. As one comrade remarked both unions and police did their work in keeping the workers isolated. It is a reminder that the capitalist crisis can lead to reactionary ideology making gains inside the working class. All the more reason why this leaflet puts the opposing case – to think beyond capitalism …
How can the workers of Alcoa, of Carbosulcis and hundreds of thousands of others continue to work and produce according to the logic of profit when South African miners are struggling for less than €400 a month and when they do so are shot out of hand?
Last year opened with a useless general strike on 6 September, a strike which was to be the first in a great season of struggle. Nothing happened; the unions failed, not because their leaders are corrupt – although that’s also true – but because the system of which they are part is itself failing, the possibilities to negotiate are now reduced to a minimum: the interests of the bosses and the interests of the workers are manifestly incompatible.
How can we face up to the problems of the closure of firms, unemployment and the crisis?
With a new referendum over Article 8 and Article 18? With a debate between the political parties, in negotiations and agreements? A change in the law? Through exemplary deeds and self-inflicted wounds? Through bombs, real or fake? Through agitating in media campaigns of panic and paranoia? Using repression by the cops? By waiting for foreign vultures to come in and take over the firm in exchange for cash and ever worsening working conditions?
Let’s Not Kid Ourselves!
The bosses are ready to tolerate and implement any one of these ideas but on three conditions
Comrades, workers, proletarians,
What they are imploring us to do indicates exactly what we have to do to oppose them.
Let’s salute the Marikana miners in South Africa whose struggle and sacrifices reminds us of what this system is really all about.
Down with the profits system, wage labour and exploitation – it has failed!
The slogan to raise in the class struggle demonstrations:
We want communism – the real kind
Note to the article
Article 8 is an attempt to bring in law to end national pay agreements and replace them with local ones (similar proposals are being made for health and education workers in the UK). Article 18 is related to the Labour Staute which prevents anyone being laid off "without just cause". It has not yet been abolished but has been weakened to make it easier for bosses to sack people.
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DERRY RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Derry Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 28 January 2023
Where: Pilots Row Centre, Rossville St, Londonderry BT48 6LP
SHEFFIELD RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Sheffield Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 4 February 2023
Where: DINA, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield S1 2AZ
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