European Mayday, an internationalist Mayday

After many years, Italian workers on strike on Mayday! Fiat Melfi workers and Alitalia air-transport workers keep on struggling and demanding autonomy in decisions about their future. At the same time, thousands of exploited workers from 10 countries in Europe will become part of the European proletariat within the EU. They will be part of a European Union which is becoming more and more an institution directed exclusively by the interests of capitalism. The policies of dismantling of social, democratic and union rights and the degradation and destruction of public services are linked with the creation of a society of control and authoritarianism, a dictatorship of the economy. 

From the numerous summits and meetings, there has emerged the refining and continuing development of a real social war, waged by the capitalist and bureaucratic States of the EU against the weakest and exploited classes throughout the continent. This war spreads insecurity, social exclusion and marginalization and is particularly hard on migrants. It is no surprise that the attempts to halt migrations from the South and the East at the borders (and from 1st May 2004 these borders will be pushed further east) have been accompanied by tolerance and incentives for casual, undeclared labour which is nothing short of modern-day slavery.

The speeding-up of these processes and of neo-liberalist policies is sanctioned by the 1999 Helsinki Pact, with the connivance of the institutional leftist parties and the union forces within the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC/CES): so Euroland was founded on the submission of the world of labour.

The enlargement of the EU takes place against a backdrop of harsh disagreements between the member countries of the Union, whose individual national interests are in conflict both on a military level (support or non-support for the USA in Iraq) and on an economic level. While there are those who wish to overcome the differences on the military front by hurrying along the process leading to a united EU military force, the divisions on economic lines are deeper. Lasting economic stagnation, with GNP forecasts of only 2% growth for 2004 and the crisis in the pact for stability and growth, combined with an incoherent superiority of the euro with respect to the dollar, are forcing the central European authorities into a policy of restricting credit and increasing cuts in the deficits of certain countries (such as Germany, France and Portugal) which are well above the deficit-GNP ratio of 3% or of those which are just around the 3% mark (such as Italy, the Netherlands and the UK). The dilemma between policies designed to control or reduce the difference and medium-term policies designed to support growth is, however, having a negative impact on the future of tens of millions of European workers. The first solution would result in heavy cuts in public spending (pensions, benefits, public services). The second solution, far from developing public structures, would provide incentives for massive privatization in the most delicate sectors of training, research and innovation. The enlargement of the EU will not dilute these structural problems - it will only worsen them.

The temporary strength of the euro over the dollar (which is less a result of a stagnating European economy but more a result of the markets punishing the dollar and the USA for its de-industrialization policies) is leading to harsh consequences for European exports and, consequently, a crisis in orders with a shrinking of the productive base or its transfer to countries with lower labour costs.

The extent of this socio-economic situation, though, has been met with widespread popular resistance, with disputes and demands on a national level as well as struggles on an international scale.

The class response to the capitalist and state-repressive domination has been tenaciously expressed on the occasions of the various EU summits since the latter years of the 20th century. All over the EU there has been increased co-ordination of truly anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian social and political forces based on strategic demands for improvements in the living conditions of millions of workers, such as:

• the right for everyone to have stable employment, guaranteed and not precarious, without discrimination due to sex or place of origin;
• a rapid reduction in all sectors of working hours with no loss in wages;
• an end to policies of precarization and flexibility of labour which lead only to workers’ whole lives being enslaved to the interests of Capital;
• the defence of wages with a rapid move towards equal buying power in all countries and the establishment of a general minimum wage throughout the EU;
• the recognition of social rights with free access by all to education, healthcare, culture, housing, transport, telecommunications and with the radical democratization of public services;
• freedom to act and to represent for union organizations and associations for struggle, without discrimination locally or within categories;
• recognition of workers’ syndical autonomy in collective negotiations;
• unrestricted freedom to strike.

In support of these demands, it is the task of anarchist political organizations and struggling unions to act in such a way as to ensure that the various struggles are linked to a desire for social transformation which would permit the development of a society of freedom, equality and solidarity, based on the sharing of labour and wealth.

The total equality of men and women, the equality of rights for the young, those in temporary employment, the unemployed, migrants and all the victims of discrimination at the hands of the State, the struggle for peace and anti-militarism, the struggle for freedom of expression, these are all fundamental unwaivable objectives in the activities of anarchist political organizations and struggling unions within society, as a component of the exploited classes and a vehicle of the growth of the revolutionary hopes among the masses.

In this spirit, an internationalist Mayday is being organised by the Italian Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici in Cremona, at the Kavarna Social Centre.


FEDERAZIONE dei COMUNISTI ANARCHICI

April 2004