Europe: strikes grow
The worsening of living conditions has generated a wave of worker strikes in the middle of summer. It is the prelude to “the perfect storm” that is predicted for the fall.
Writes: Ruben Tzanoff
A little over a month ago we published the note“European airports: “Strikes don’t take vacations.”. In it we reported on important struggles of workers from different countries.. From that moment until now, The living conditions of the vast majority have worsened and the labor movement is responding strongly.
United Kingdom: collapse around Big Ben
Thehistoric transport strikes They have started a new round of complaints on London trains and the Underground. The doctors, lawyers, postmen, airline employees, Airport workers and lawyers also threaten to go on strike. They have plenty of reasons to fight. Inflation exceeds 10%, taxes are the highest in seventy years. Gas and electricity bills will reach 600 euros per month per household and millions of people will not be able to pay them. In the meantime, The Conservative Party takes its time to choose the replacement ofBoris Jonhson between two other right-wing politicians: Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. The new prime minister will be elected undemocratically, between the four walls of the Conservative Party, without appealing to the population, not even with general elections.
France: August with a wave of fighting
In the middle of summer and holidays, a real wave of strikes develops. Among others we can mention: the SETRAM bus network in Le Mans and its metropolis, the waste collectors of Auxerrois, to Air Calédonie cabin crew, to the staff of SNCF in the area of Occitania and the Toulouse-Narbonne line, to the Divia transport service, to the staff of the National Union of Outdoor Sports Centers of the Alps, to the lifeguards and technical agents of the municipal swimming pools of Paris, to the workers of the Bagnolet reception center, to the midwives of the Center Hospitalier Public du Colentin in Cherbourg, to the nurses of Disneyland Paris, security guards at Saint-Exupéry Airport, to the helpers and home helpers of the AVEC group in Sarreguemines and to the employees of the Siniat factory in Mazan.
Spain: strike, mobilizations and union debate at Iberia Express
At the end of June, the strikes of the Spanish workers of the Irish company beganlow cost Ryanair. To try to deactivate them, the employers reached an agreement with Workers' Commissions (CC. And.), that does not have any implementation in the sector, supposedly to advance“improvements in working conditions and salaries” while they prepare a new agreement. The Workers' Union (USE), majority among the workers rejected it because"insufficient" Y“extra-statutory”. And now he announced strikes and a calendar of mobilizations among the 28 August and 6 of September, for the negotiation of the new collective agreement. The UGT and CC.OO plants. They play a very negative role by refusing to support and unite the struggles.
What is happening is just the tip of the iceberg
It is necessary to respond to today's struggles and prepare to face what is coming. a Europe, inflation climbs to historical values, consumes salaries and pensions. There are restrictions on the use of energy and shortages of some products, with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop. Y, even if they don't recognize it, there is a climate emergency. Very high temperatures cause drought, crop losses, low water levels in the swamps and terrifying forest fires. Because, the days 10 Y 11 September the LIS will hold aInternational Socio-Environmental Meeting virtual in which you can participate.
hot summer: in degrees Celsius and in social temperature
It has been anticipated“perfect storm” of economic and social crisis that many analysts predicted for the fall. The governments, be from Macron, Sánchez or whoever comes to power in the United Kingdom promote austerity measures so that the working people are the ones who pay the consequences of the crisis. Businessmen and union bureaucrats endorse them. The end of the summer holidays will mark the beginning of more difficult times in which the class struggle will have the last word.
Support the struggles and demand a general strike
With the crisis of the capitalist economy exacerbated by the pandemic and deepened by the war, The living conditions of workers and the people are deteriorating at high speed. Inflation is liquefying salaries, pensions and social benefits. In the meantime, the governments, the employers' associations and the leaders of the majority union centers maneuver“as a team” to favor employer profits and stop claims. Because, It is necessary that the demands for struggle from the union leaders do not stop there only: On this path, a new union leadership must be forged. A transitional emergency program is needed, built from below, in worker assemblies that debate and decide their own agenda of demands and struggle ordered to ensure that the capitalists pay for the crisis.
New political alternatives are needed
The disasters and betrayals of the old bosses' parties, of the reformers, social democrats and stalinists, pose an urgent task: advance the regrouping of revolutionary socialists to establish anti-capitalist alternatives, of class independence and support for worker and popular mobilization. The commitment of the LIS colleagues in Europe is to put themselves at the service of these tasks.
