5-7 November 2014, Deputy General Secretary, Valentin Pacho visited India and took part in the 8th Congress of the Construction Workers Federation of India and greeted the delegates with the following speech:
“By a special assignment of the Secretariat of the World Federation of Trade Unions –WFTU-, that represents 90 million workers in the 5 continents, I have the mission to transmit to you warm and class solidarity greetings to your important 8th National Congress of the Construction Workers Federation of India and wish you great success. Your debates and resolutions will be a great contribution for the strengthening of the struggles of class oriented trade unionism of India, Asia and on international level, because construction workers all over the world are very respected because of their combativity.
The 8th Congress of the Construction Workers Federation of India, because it’s being held in the context frame of the deep crisis of the capitalist system, expressed in the economic and financial crisis and has generated a total crisis that includes all aspects of social life, affects the values, the human relations, the consequences are felt by the working class and the big majority of the people excluded by the current model.
The direct culprits, it’s the imperialism headed by the United States, the instruments it uses in order to dominate, the supranational forces; the IMF –International Monetary Fund-, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the imperialist blocs, like the European Union and others, where the transnational corporations are in command and uses their military wing, the NATO –North Atlantic Treaty Organization- is to invade countries and generate wars, with the support and complicity of the neoliberal governments, servile to the big capital.
In this context, the struggles of the world working class are developed in the context of the class struggle, workers need their instrument to fight and this is the class oriented and militant trade unionism, as the Construction Federation of India CWFI, headed by comrade Debanjan Chakrabarti.
But, unfortunately there is also reformist oriented trade unionism, accomplishes of the businesses and the neoliberal governments. And that’s why there are two international union organizations in the world, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the other one is the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), with anti-imperialist orientation, that give a frontal fight against the big capital, the transnational corporations and the neoliberal governments. The
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WFTU struggles for profound changes in society, where the priority will be the workers, in other words socialism.
The WFTU greatly appreciates the consistent history of struggles of the Construction Workers Federation of India, an important affiliate of the Trade Union International of Construction Unions UITBB, whose General Secretary is cde Debanjan Chakrabarti.
The WFTU has 10 Trade Union Internationals of sectoral trade unions, one of them is for construction workers. The WFTU ratifies it full support and solidarirty with the struggles of CWFI and the UITBB. They are important bases of the structure of the WFTU and the WFTU ratifies its full support and confidence in comrade Debanjan Chakrabarti.
The struggles of the WFTU are for full right to employment with, dignified salaries, for the right to collective bargaining, for healthcare and social security for everybody, for the respect of the right to free trade union organization and the right to strike. In this context, the WFTU held the international mobilization of workers on October 3.
The WFTU is internationalist; we express our solidarity with the workers and the people of Palestine, we actively condemn the genocide perpetrated by the Zionist Israel with the support of the imperialists, we express our solidarity with the workers and peoples of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, our solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, our solidarity with the workers of India and the world.
Long live the Construction Workers Federation of India!
Long live proletarian internationalism!”
