Crisis? Whose? Why? Reforms - who will apply them and who will suffer?

Joint demonstration, Barcelona - 18th September 2010

These positions are shared by the organizations calling this demonstration and by others who struggle against this voracious capitalism from other alternative, environmental and educational perspectives, who share a desire for a libertarian society, a society that is more just, more equal and more free, a society where direct - not delegated - democracy and self-organization will prevail and where the economy is at the service of the common good.

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TO ALL WORKERS
TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

CRISIS! WHOSE? WHY?
REFORMS - WHO WILL APPLY THEM AND WHO WILL SUFFER?

Because we cannot remain impassive in the face of this offensive by politicians and capital, with labour reforms that advocate job cuts and pay freezes, the lack of consideration for the effect of redundancies to the point of making them freely and gratuitously used, the extension of the retirement age and the ease with which it is now possibile to violate collective agreements. Because we must not allow further cuts in social spending, such as the reduced purchasing power of pensions, the cutting of benefits to dependent adults, or cuts and privatization in healthcare. Because they say that there is a crisis - which we did not cause and which in any case is a product of their organization of society - we believe that those who have caused it must pay for their excesses, just as the housing speculators and the exploiters grouped in the various business organizations must responsibility for their crises, not the workers, who are not responsible and have never had access to the means of social control.

The workers and the public in general have no possibility to decide on our lives. We are considered as objects, almost always obedient to what is decided by the powerful and what we are ordered to do by politicians charged with enforcing the laws and the wishes of the former. In the meantime, those who continue to earn millions - the banks, the hugely rich, parasitic brokers, etc. - are not suffering any crisis. Through its employees, the politicians, this "caste" imposes regulations (decrees and laws) and subsidies that always favour those who have more. It is significant that through the media - always at the service of its master, capital - demonstrations are publicized, particularly by politicians who are not currently in power, demanding that those who are in power carry out more social cuts, which they should have implemented two years ago (Convergència i Unió and the Partido Popular).

It is thanks to bad education levels, consumerism and the "lowest common denominator" culture broadcast through the "boob tube", and to distractions such as sporting successes and the disgraceful spectacle of statutes and constitutional courts, that the public is so soporific that it can no longer analyse what or who is responsible for the current social and jobs situation.

Currently:

• Unemployment is at 20% of the workforce and of these, 1.5 million have no income, 550,000 exist on €426 a month and 11 million workers receive wages under €9,000 a year, in other words €750 a month.


• There are over 30,000 people without a home, while there are 3 million empty houses.


• Repression is on the increase and new prisons are continuing to be built. 70,000 people are in prison.


• Pollution is increasing but car-makers are being subsidized to the detriment of public transport. Waste from food packaging and industry is destroying nature - the greenhouse effect, radioactive waste, the destruction of forests, etc.


• Aid and subsidies to the Church amount to €15 billion, the banks receive €9 billion, political parties €200 million, not to mention the countless sums benefitting NGOs, Party foundations, business foundations and so on.


• The cost of the military and police forces has risen to €26 billion.


• High-level crooks are scamming national and local governments and the taxpayers. Some of those we know of: Pujol (Banca Catalana) - €24 million, Millet and Montull (Palau de la Música) - €36 million so far, Camps (president of the Valencia Community, Valencia's regional government) - €14 million, Matas (ex-president of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands) - €50 million, the former mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet and his henchmen, Díaz Ferrán (President of the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organizations - CEOE) and so on - hundreds of millions of Euro.

We cannot be accomplices to all these abuses. Today the struggle continues, from the grassroots up, from the neighbourhoods, from the assemblies, respecting both the individual and freely taken collective decisions, the mobilizations on the streets and in the workplace, including those strikes that the greatly-discredited official unions have called. All this has led to the calling of a General Strike on 29th September which, as on many previous occasions, will be used by them to try desperately to save their skins because they never confront the system that feeds their expensive apparata, causing disappointment and suffocating the struggles.

Given this situation the workers organized in a form of syndicalism that walks proudly, propose and demand the following:

• the division of labour and what is produced by labour;


• abolition of the privileges of the Church and all other religions, of the banks and of the military;


• withdrawal of subsidies to the monarchy, political parties, NGOs and Trade Unions - in 2008 and 2009, the CCOO and the UGT received the sum of €171,109,367 from the State, that is to say from our taxes;


• prosecution of businesses for tax fraud;


• the right to work and a minimum wage of €1,200 a month for all including the unemployed and pensioners;


• extension of free, universal social services to the entire population;


• respect for immigration and the freedom of the individual;


• the disbanding of all police and military forces of repression;


• an end to all forms of repression and torture;


• the elimination of waged employment and of the estates;


• an economic and social model that is rational, supportive and sustainable, focusing on education, the land, consumption, housing, non-aggressive and non-contaminating technologies...

In other words - social justice.

These positions are shared by the organizations calling this demonstration and by others who struggle against this voracious capitalism from other alternative, environmental and educational perspectives, who share a desire for a libertarian society, a society that is more just, more equal and more free, a society where direct - not delegated - democracy and self-organization will prevail and where the economy is at the service of the common good.

Faced with this fallacy of the crisis, which only serves to give the capitalists and their servants another chance to wring more blood from the stone in order to get more benefits, while they expecting us to pay for their excesses, corruption and greed, the workers must unite. Anarcho-syndicalism is a valid means of struggle in order to create a new society. It is an essential and already-existing alternative which will not give up because, comrade brothers and sisters, our future and the future of the next generation depends on today and tomorrow, it depends on us being able to maintain the true strength of the workers, our unity and our struggle at work and on the streets.

The general strike of 29th September together with other future strikes and mobilizations at the very minimum must achieve the withdrawal of the government's labour reforms and cuts in social spending.

DEMONSTRATION - 18 SEPTEMBER 2010

12.00 at Plaça de la Universitat, Barcelona

Confederació General del Treball de Catalunya (CGT)

http://www.cgtcatalunya.cat

Confederació Nacional del Treball Catalunya (CNT-Joaquín Costa)

http://www.nodo50.org/cntcatalunya

Solidaridad Obrera

http://www.solidaridadobrera.org

Translation by FdCA-International Relations Office