After the 1st International Conference of Young Workers that was celebrated by the WFTU and the CGT Peru, in Lima last November, the International Coordinating Committee Of Young Workers held successfully its 1st Meeting on 27 March, at the WFTU Central Offices in Athens, with the presence of comrades George Mavrikos and Valentin Pacho, General Secretary and Debuty General Secretary respectively of the WFTU. The representatives of trade unions in Latin America, Asia, Arab Countries, Africa and Europe after a broad democratic debate on key agenda items, we publish this Resolution and the Introduction Speech of the Meeting that was enriched with usefull proposals from all the members of the Committee and constitute an important Action Plan. We need to promote these 2 documents to the working youth all over the world.
Our main objective for the next period is to mobilize and to coordinate the young workers so to fight for their rights, to adopt the WFTU positions and demands and to reinforce its action.
In this context we signalize the following 3 landmarks
– We celebrate with activities the 65th Anniversary of WFTU foundation. Our central slogan will be “WFTU: we learn from your history – we continue your militant and honorable course”
– We promote by statements and poster the 16th World Trade Union Congress that will be held in April 2011 in Greece, in Athens, with the purpose this Congress become an important landmark in the conscience of the working youth
– We mobilize the youth to participate at the initiatives of the WFTU forces at the May Day 2010 and at the International Action Day of WFTU (September 2010)
Additionally
– we propose to our forces in each continent to organize Regional Activities for the youth with specific topics
– we call all WFTU affiliates and friends to create youth groups of WFTU in each country
– we intensify our communication and we use our internet tools (e-mail address: [email protected], website address: http://groups.google.com/group/wftuyouth , group: [email protected] )
– until the next International Conference of Young Workers we have the responsibility to promote and to materialize our objectives so to conquer a better level in our action
Finally, we express our full militant solidarity with the working class struggles in Europe against attack on social security, our solidarity with PAME in Greece, for its courageous consistent attitude and also with the struggles of trade unions in Latin America as the Mexican Union of Electricians EMS, as Honduras and other organizations that struggle in Africa, Asia and Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine. We support the struggles of workers, of young people around the world against the aggression of capital and against imperialist interventions.
We call on the working youth of the world to join us in our efforts to built a world,
where there is no exploitation of man by man.
Athens -Greece, 27 March 2010
Skhumbuzo Phakathi, SOUTH AFRICA
Mohamed Abdrabu Saad, Kamel Khedr, EGYPT
Nikos Theodorakis, PAME –GREECE
Walter Manrique Juarez Hernandez, FUTH- HONDURAS
Sed Zia Ullah Azam , APFUTU-PAKISTAN
Antreas Kounnis, PEO- CYPRUS
Vasiliki Moukanou, WFTU
Opening speech of comrade Vasiliki Moukanou, WFTU
Dear comrades,
We hold today the first meeting of our Committee after the 1st International Conference of young workers that was celebrated by the WFTU and the CGT Peru, in Lima, Peru last November.
The conditions in which our meeting takes place have 3 features:
1. We are in Greece, where the capital and its political supporters invoke the deficits and the debts of the Greek economy, invoke the global capitalist crisis and they attack even more strongly against the workers. In particular, the Social Democratic government of PASOK and the European Union as well as the Greek parties that support and underpin EU policy require by the Greek working class to sacrifice even more so to overcome the crisis. They continue the subtraction of the rights and conquests of the workers that have been won by hard and bloody fights. The crisis, however, is an essential and inevitable element of capitalism. The workers have no responsibility for it. Particulary in Greece, the crisis was deteriorated by the adaptation of the country in the EMU (European Money Union), by the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and of other agreements. The real aim of the new laws is to become even more cheap the labor force and to increase the profits of capital. The class trade union movement in Greece that expressed by PAME with the support of the WFTU responded immediately, massively and militant. They require the plutocracy to pay the crisis and not the workers. At the same time they demand requests that cover the modern needs of the working class. Thousands of young workers across the country affiliate to trade unions, they participate at the strikes and they demonstrate by requiring the same demands. They fight with PAME for their future. 2. In the same way the state of the world working class and young workers is getting worse. The crisis resulting from the overaccumulation of the capital it is also a mechanism of reconstruction that will bring back the system stronger with the support of the governments. Over the body of the the working class. The global unemployment that affects primarily young people is at record levels and is expected to remain the same throughout 2010. Flexible working relationships and uninsured work dominate. The poverty is spreading. The problems of feeding, drinking water, housing and all social problems are increasing. The imperialist aggression and the global mechanisms of repression by the U.S. and the European Union are intensified. The ideological assault on the conscience of the working youth is grown with the aim the problems to be translated into « bad luck » and to hide the responsibility of the forces that support the capitalist system. They want to hide the basic contradiction: that the wealth produced by the working class but it is concentrated by the few, by the capitalists. For the problems above and for the actual situation of the working class, bear the same responsibility the forces that support and promote the theories that the capitalism can be more human and can share the profits fairly to the exploiters and to the exploited. In this line move the ITUC and the NGOs that promote assent and subordination of trade union movement. They corrupt and they are corrupted. They aim at a future that the status of the youth worker will be even worse. 3. Our meeting is hold almost a month after the 4th WFTU Presidential Council Meeting that took place at Ho Chi Minch, Vietnam. In a uniting and militant atmosphere was predominated the common estimation that the WFTU is in an upward motion and in a higher quality process. More Trade Unions Organizations accept its role and action, inspired by them, become members, adopt its demands and its objectives of the struggle. They strengthen the fight and the prestige of the WFTU in their countries. At the same meeting was adopted the new Action Plan 2010 of the WFTU, which is ambitious and includes many activities and initiatives at sectoral, regional and national level. In every continent the WFTU develop a concrete action program. With this action plan the WFTU will get even stronger in the 16th World Trade Union Congress to be held in April 2011 in Athens. We, particularly can prepare by statements, posters et.c. the youth in each Continent to participate with the WFTU forces at the central movilisations in 1st May and in 1st week of September (in this week will be celebrated the WFTU International Action Day)
We must fight in these conditions so to activate the youth in this way, on the side of the WFTU. This is the need and the requirement that prevailed at the 1st International Conference of Young Workers last November. The optimism during and after the Conference underlined that this is an achievable goal. The same optimism strengthened us and charged us with greater responsibilities.
Dear comrades,
In this meeting we believe that we can decide some initiatives and also we can make some others to the WFTU Secretariat and according to its decision we can move toward.
– The Final Declaration of the Conference has been translated into 3 main languages (English, French, Spanish) in Portuguese and Hungarian. We know that it has been promoted and has been utilized as a discussion tool with young people. We need to intensify this effort in organizing activities and distribute the Final Declaration and the WFTU other materials relating to young workers (as the speech tha made the General Secretary of the WFTU, comrade George Mavrikos, at the University Lázaro Peña, in Havana, with the title ”The WFTU and our Youth”). To publish a book including the Final Declaration in all languages and other materials of the Conference.
– According to the decision that we had took in the Committee meeting after the Conference we created an e-mail address: [email protected] Our purpose is to ameliorate our communication and propaganda at the international level and to inform massively on our positions and our actions. Through this e-mail address the Committee, the participants of the Conference and also the Organizations and the combatants who express interest in the WFTU Youth, are informed in the main activities and initiatives of the WFTU and of its Organizations. At the same time we have created a website address: http://groups.google.com/group/wftuyouth to promote our statements and activities and in this address we have a group [email protected] We want this web site become a place of discussion, of exchange of views, of acceptation on the WFTU claims. There are difficulties, such as the different communication languages, the different hours, but we believe that if all the Committee members will involve, this effort can be more successful and more massive. We, first of all have to participate actively in this attempt. So we can use the Internet for our own objectives. We need also to ameliorate the communication between the Committe members so be informed for the promotion of the goals that we set. To know better for example what the class trade union movement organize for the young workers in every continent and in every country and to inform the other Organizations that can take experience by these initiatives.
– We believe that we can do the next step. To organize a central activity or activities in each continent with the main objective to make our appearance in the action. The forms that will take may be central manifestations, meetings in a continent or in a series of countries in the same continent at the same time. The following topics are proposed:
1. Latin America: trade union freedoms and democratic rights
We coordinate with the struggle of the WFTU against the murders of trade unionists and combatants of the popular and trade union movement. Latin America is really full of their blood. In Colombia, by the forces of capital and the American governments. In Honduras by the same forces and by the European Union that supports the government of the coup. In Mexico that the struggle of the workers meet also the brutal repression. Even in Haiti after the disaster and in Chile after the earthquake the imperialist forces have rushed to impose against the people. We support the socialist Cuba that receives a continuing attack on democratic rights of people from the EU and the U.S.A. Against of all this repression we can organize campaigns and manifestations of the Committee so to support the struggle for trade union freedoms and democratic rights.
2. Africa: unemployment – immigrants
In the richest continent in wealth-producing sources live the poorest people. The multinationals obtain their wealth. The poverty strikes mainly young people and is a key factor in the explosion of social problems that the youth face such as the unemployment and immigration. It is also a factor in pressure and integration. We can organize initiatives requiring immediate solution to the problems, requiring the elimination of external debt of African countries reinforcing the affiliation of the young workers to the trade union movement and we can mobilize the trade union youth in Africa to fight against unemployment and to take initiatives for the immigrants
3. Middle East: imperialist interventions
The Middle East is a permanent goal of imperialism. They want to control it and is under constant threat of imperialist intervention. In Palestine the people fight against Israeli occupation, equal in Iraq the American repression deepens. We can arrange a youth workers meeting of condemnation the imperialist aggression. Also we can organize an initiative for the Trade Union Youth in Arabic Countries in coordination with ICATU
4. Asia: malnutrition – hunger
Millions of people especially children are malnourished and die every year from hunger. A large proportion of those located in South Asia. International organizations, non-governmental organizations illustrate the problem on their reports, but essentially the measures proposed do not affect the real causes. The problem of hunger can be solved. We can get initiatives promoting the WFTU claims and demanding the solution, fighting against the high food prices, against low wages and dismissals that are the main causes of the malnutrition and of the hunger.
5. Europe: unemployment – flexible working relationships
In European countries, unemployment in recent times in the capitalist crisis has intensified. Unemployment and dismissals strike especially the young workers. The bourgeoisie is using the unemployment as a lever of pressure and of threat to remove the workers’ rights and achievements. In conjunction with this, the capital, the EU and its governments promote the flexible working relationships with purpose to reduce even more the value of the labor force. They even use the part-time job as an indicator of reducing unemployment. The response of young workers in Europe led by the WFTU and the support of the class trade union movement must be coordinated and massive. We can organize common action and to request the inhibition of the dismissals, reinstatement of workers that have been dismissed, the permanent and stable job with full rights for all. Also the european members of the Committee take the responsibility for the realization of a Seminar for the europe working youth.
The purpose of these activities is the promotion of the WFTU positions and requests and their adoption by the young workers in the action. We want to strengthen WFTU prestige. To integrate the action of the forces that participated in the Conference and of others who want to fight with us. We want to present to the young people the 2 lines that exist in the international labor movement:
– the one expressed by the ITUC and its forces in each country and serves through the class peace and cooperation the objectives of the capital and its governments
– the other expressed by the WFTU and its own forces that they oppose to these objectives by following the line of the class claim and class conflict.
Our lives depend on from which line, with which organization will fight.
We propose to realize these initiatives within 1 year from now. We need to support them with statements from our Organizations and all communications will bring the symbol of the Committee (as it is in the top of this page), the logo and the slogan of the 16th Congress which we have to take care that this will become an important landmark in the conscience of the working youth. For the Congress the Committee can publish a poster with the slogan that also the Conference approved at the Final Declaration: “Our future is not capitalism. Our future is sosialism”
Also we will celebrate with activities the 65th Anniversary of WFTU foundation. We want to show to the world youth the WFTU history and the requirement to participate in its course by participating in the class trade union movement in each country. During the 99th ILC in Geneva the WFTU will hold an activity for the 65th Anniversary of its foundation (June 15th). Our forces in Europe can support this activity
Finally one of the issues that we have worked in the 1st Conference was the organization of the next Conference. We believe that having done the next step, the appearance of a Committee in action as described we can proceed to the 2nd International Conference of Young Workers. The WFTU Secretary can decide where and when the next Conference can take place.
Dear comrades
In these difficult times for the working class we have a key weapon in our hands: our positions, our demands, the action of WFTU. We can use them. To built the future of the working class without the exploiters and we know that the working youth is the future of the class trade union movement.
