REGION AMERICA
AMERICA`S REGION

STATEMENT
OF THE WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS (WFTU) REGARDING THE CREATION OF THE COMMUNITY OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES (CELAC)

With great satisfaction, WFTU welcomes the creation of CELAC as a process of extraordinary strategic meaning for the sake of our region, by recognizing the basis identifying us, without the mediation of foreign hegemonic interests, and as an expression of the need for claiming people´s sovereignty.

Beyond the diversity of creed and ideologies, there has been recognition that the economic model and policies imposed from Washington are already exhausted, and the necessity of prioritizing the most significant interests of the country by a systematic effort, in a coordinated and committed way according to the people´s desires.

We are very concerned with the way in which the world economic situation is endangered, in the middle of the economic crisis, the turbulence of the financial markets and the difficulties with tax policies in many places. The volatility of prices in basic goods and the pressures exerted against food security are key problems to be solved.

We are aware that worldwide consequences of these problems fall mainly in the working class, and especially in poorest people. Although Latin America and the Caribbean, according to key international organizations, is not the most affected region, the main records of labor market, inequality and poverty, are showing that vulnerability and the region´s main problems have not been solved yet.

Again and again it is repeated that Latin America and the Caribbean is the most unequal region on Earth, but still we have a lot to do in order to break the vicious circle of inequality and poverty.

In this environment, we are conscious that in nations facing such facts, with sociopolitical models more radicals and leaning to change, their people and governments suffer from an increasing aggressive actions on the part of United States government and its allies, which adopt new and assorted ways, ranging from the allocation of big amounts of money for subversion, to the increase of military installations, with the evident proposal of pushing for setbacks, and in order to intervene militarily in case they feel that their interests and greed over the natural resources of all kind, are at stake; particularly oil and natural gas, all of which provoke war of pillage in other regions.

Because of all above mentioned issues, today more than ever, the appeal for unity of the working class takes validity, facing the attempts for subversion and lulling of our struggle, by mean of a conciliating and compromising speech, with neoliberals’ ideas, that already demonstrated their failure and have been rejected, because, among other facts, the labor policies regarding the so called flexibility in employment, make it precarious, and the same happens with wages, the workers´ living conditions and the limitations of the freedom to organize themselves.

Neoliberal policies have not solved any of the problems that are the core of people´s aspirations.

♦ We have to strengthen the class oriented trade union movement, in order to encourage unity of action of workers and their people, in favor of mobilization and conformation of proposals beyond the eminently vindicating and economic union framework, generating alternative programs and proposals where aspirations of the whole population be reflected.

♦ It is unavoidable for us to oppose an attempt to criminalize the trade union movement, due to its positions defending national wealth, social transformations leading to respect and promote actual human rights, social and environmental justice, fostering full and dignified employment, sustainable way of living, basic health services, education, housing, among others.

Likewise, we cannot forget our opposition regarding violence by organized crime, but also of the use of the State´s armed forces against the population.

♦ It is necessary for us to override the root causes which limit a greater degree of workers´ participation in the process leading to regional integration, even with the diversity of our positions and affiliations, and under the key premise around unity, common points permitting us to go ahead in a joint and articulated way.

♦ We should insist that every country must adopt its own decisions in an environment of peace, stability, justice, democracy and respect for human rights.

♦ Our uncompromising rejection to the presence of military installations requires firmness from CELAC, and also in relation to extortion on the part of rich countries conditioning economic assistance to the acquisition of military equipment. Money that is allocated for weapons should go for the solution of problems related to services and social protection, needed by people and workers.

♦ The integration of our countries should help in the commitment to build an international order more just, equitable and harmonic, founded in the respect for international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter, among them the sovereign equality of States, and the peaceful solution of conflicts, favoring justice, peace, development and understanding among peoples.

♦ CELAC needs to stay away from Bretton Woods agreements, by creating, more than a common account unit, and a regional monetary, commercial and financial system incorporating a chamber of payments compensation with a financial fund for the development of entities like Banco del Sur (Bank of the South).

♦ Member Governments of CELAC should reject IMF mechanisms and other international financial institutions that impose programs going against interests and rights of the working class, by mean of astringency, privatization and pillage policies of wealth belonging to our people.

♦ We condemn the implementation of Free Trade Agreements and other ways of association with United States, Canada and the European Union, which have removed jobs, and have subjugated our national economies to uncertainties and imbalances of international markets.

♦ In the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), we have to influence in order to get fundamental structural changes for the transformation of the whole world economic and financial system, trying to avoid another crisis like the one we are facing today.

♦ The external debt should be canceled. It has been already paid many times.

♦ We hope that CELAC will encourage coordinated investment policies, technological innovation, rational use of natural resources and the environment, fiscal, tax, commercial, migration, educational, health and security and social prevention measures, towards the creation and stabilization of jobs, and the protection of jobless people.

♦It is very important for CELAC to guide national economic policies towards productive investments, according to national interests, urging investors to comply with labor rights and be subjected to national courts in case of violations.

· Promote a wage policy which greatly increases payments to all workers, and by that means to push the consumption of goods and services, and encouraging at the same time investments and jobs.

♦ We demand CELAC to sponsor a free and public education, in order to forge characters based upon culture in its broadest meaning, with values such as, identity, solidarity, reciprocity, and to develop scientific knowledge according to workers’ and people´s needs.

♦ We urge each country to have a high quality and free health care system, covering all the requirements of people.

♦CELAC should impose itself since the beginning, going ahead in the formation of alternatives regarding food, energy and financial sovereignty, in the defense of environment and against the effects of climate change; claiming the need for the existence of peace, against the militarization and State terrorism, and where the attention and the search of solutions to the serious social problems we are facing, be the base of our determination.

CELAC governments should assure:

· Rights for a free and democratic trade union organization, facing violators of rules of Covenant 87 of ILO.
· Tutelage for representatives and trade union activists against any reprisal affecting their families, their jobs or labor conditions.
· Prohibition and nullification of high-handed or unprovoked firing
· Guarantee for labor justice, specialized in the Law of Labor

Los Angeles. The just concluded AFL-CIO convention reaffirmed its
commitment to a single payer health care system while demanding that the
Affordable Care Act (ACA) be fixed to protect Taft-Hartley (multiemployer)
plans, to end the excise tax, to make employers cover workers who average
20 hours a week, to require construction companies with 5 or more
employees to provide health care, to penalize companies who dump their
workers onto Medicaid, plus more.

Some of the debate on the resolution can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpVOf9Qsmno

Full text of the resolution can be found here:

http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments/Resolution-54-AFL-CIO-Convention-Resolution-on-the-Affordable-Care-Act

Distributed by:

All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org

9/12/13

By Darrell Rankin, People’s Voice, May 1, 2013

Dealing a blow to workers and the poor, the Manitoba NDP raised the provincial sales tax from seven to eight percent in its April 16 budget. Take-home pay is taking another hit, reinforcing Manitoba’s status as a low-wage province.

An active coalition to demand a Peoples Budget is needed now, or business groups will increase their grip on the provincial government in the 2015 election.

The wealthy elite will barely notice the PST hike. However, workers will have less for the necessities of life. This is a wage cut by other, indirect means – about $300 a year per family. Before-tax wages in Manitoba were $3,500 (or 8 percent) below the country’s annual average in 2012.

The budget follows the model of pro-corporate governments around the world, making cuts that harm workers and the needy and protecting the corporations and the wealthy. Impoverishing workers prolongs and deepens the economic crisis that has gripped global capitalism since 2008.

In one sense, it is a standard Canadian Prairie provincial budget with no grand vision or hope for a fair society. It is blind to inequality, the wholesale robbery of Aboriginal peoples, the inequality of women and the growing climate catastrophe. Good-paying jobs, higher education and child care will continue to be just a crushed dream for many.

Without any factual basis, Manitoba NDP Finance Minister Stan Struthers claims that the PST hike will be “shared by everyone.” Struthers emphasizes the need for urgent flood protection spending, but most new spending is for overdue maintenance and an aging population’s needs.

Needed spending has been delayed for decades as a way to keep public spending low and give Manitoba a “competitive advantage,” but there is a limit to how long our infrastructure will last. The Manitoba NDP’s spending and tax hikes were demanded by local corporate leaders.

There is no other reason why workers and the poor are facing this new burden. The Chamber of Commerce differs with the NDP only by suggesting that the PST hike be entirely directed to municipal infrastructure. And unlike the two-year wage pause announced in the 2010 provincial budget that continues to rob public sector workers of hundreds of millions of dollars, this tax hike hurts all workers.

Labour and other groups are condemning the budget for promoting inequality and failing to reduce poverty. For example, the Progressive Conservative and Liberal opposition parties both endorsed an anti-poverty campaign pledge to raise the welfare housing allowance to 75 percent of market value, weeks before the budget.

The budget raised the housing allowance by a paltry $20 a month, far below the required amount of $100 to meet the anti-poverty coalition demands. This is the first real increase in the allowance since 1992.

A relatively small sum of $19 million would solve the housing allowance demand, something the NDP might do before the 2015 election. It will take far more significant measures to eliminate poverty, create good-paying jobs and grow the economy than this minor reform.

The Manitoba Federation of Labour is pointing out that the NDP has cut $1 billion in personal and corporate taxes since it was elected in 1999. These tax cuts helped the corporate elite. They also helped create a weaker and more unequal economy.

Taxes must shift to a progressive basis, on ability to pay. An inheritance tax on large estates would also go a long way to boost revenue for needed public spending and reduce social inequality.

Working people and the poor are being told by the Manitoba NDP that they must pay more to solve the crisis. It’s like the NDP has no memory how Canada’s economy grew faster and more people had better paying jobs when the wealthy and the corporations paid higher taxes.

The NDP is pushing the line that taxes are good regardless who pays them because we need medicare and roads, but the NDP overlooks the main reality. Today’s tax hikes and spending cuts are impoverishing workers. They protect the greedy, not the needy.

The Manitoba NDP is creating a new, cruel reality just like other pro-corporate governments.

Darrell Rankin is the leader of the Communist Party of Canada Manitoba

ALL WORKERS MILITANT FRONT (W.F.T.U. Affiliate)
5b, Ag. Filotheis 10556 Athens, GREECE, Τel. +30210 3305 219,+30210 3301842,+30210 3301847 Fax +30210 3802 864, E-mail : international@pamehellas.gr

http://www.pamehellas.gr

July 20th, Athens, Greece

PRESS RELEASE

ATTEMPTS TO BREAK THE 9MONTH STRIKE OF THE STEEL WORKERS
USING RIOT POLICE

On the early morning of Friday, Riot Police forces, under the instructions of the three-party Greek government (ND neoliberals, PASOK and DHMAR socialdemocrats ) attempted to break the heroic struggle of the steel workers, by arresting the strikers picket line, who have been on strike for 9 months.

The executive secretariat of PAME, responded immediately by calling the workers and the trade unions of the area to go immediately at the factory of the HALIVOURGIA. In very short time, at the gates of HALIVOURGIA gathered hundreds of workers from all over Athens to support the strikers steel workers. The solidarity mobilisation is still in progress.

The board of the steel workers’ trade union met immediately and calls for solidarity the workers of the area to a rally at the gates of the factory in the afternoon. Tomorrow Saturday, will realise General Assembly of the workers of the steel industry in order to decide how to respond to this new attack.

We call all trade unions and workers to condemn the antilabour and terrorizing practices of the Greek government that responds with violence and suppression to the just demands of the workers. The struggle of the steelworkers against wage cuts and lay offs is struggle of all workers.

The Executive Secretaria

________________________________________________________________________________

Please send letters expressing your solidarity with the steelworkers to:

Greek Ambassador: Constantina Zagorianou-Prifti, e-mail: embgr@eircom.net

By James Thompson

HOUSTON – Houston janitors organized by the Service Employee International Union have been involved in a contract dispute since their contract expired on May 31. They have held a number of events to make the public aware of their plight. They are seeking wages of $10 an hour, whereas they are currently being paid a top wage of $8.35 an hour.

During a demonstration near the Galleria on July 11, a union organizer from California, Leticia Salcedo, was arrested and spent the night in jail according to the Houston Chronicle. About 400 janitors and their supporters from the community and other unions participated in the event to show solidarity with the striking janitors.

Salcedo was previously arrested in a similar event about a month ago when she attempted to assist a worker that had been knocked to the ground by the mounted police.

The janitors went on strike on July 10 and about 250 of them walked off the job because of failed negotiations between SEIU and building contractors.

On Saturday, July 14, nearly 300 people marched outside the Galleria in spite of rainstorms and hot weather. The called the event “The Children’s Day of Action” and it was held on the fifth day of the janitors’ strike. They were supported by the Houston Peace and Justice Center and the AFL-CIO as well as other community organizations. About 60 children held banners and chanted “Si se peude” or “Yes, we can.”

These brave people are fighting for their right to a living wage and for a better future for all.

Janitors and their supporters fight for a better future for all

“I never really wanted to start freelancing. It pretty much happened by accident,” said Ray Phomsopha, a young freelancer. “Freelancing sounds great as an idea. Great day rates, freedom, being your own boss.”

Ray is not alone in this thinking. According to Freelancers Union, a non-profit that represents independent workers, nearly 30% of the workforce today can be classified as freelancers or independent workers who have thrown off the drudgery of a regular 9-5 job. They work as writers, graphic and web designers, advertising specialists, translators and artists. They have struck out on their own, becoming their own bosses and having the freedom to decide when and where they are going to work and for how much. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, especially for many young workers who are looking for a new approach to work that includes the flexibility and adventure we crave.

But, behind all the glitz and glamour that freelancing is wrapped in, is a harsher reality that many young workers run into blindly. There are some who are able to make it the freelancing world. Those who can make it work are generally older and more established people in their fields of work. New comers, however, quickly find themselves in protracted struggles just to get by.

Read more »

Fifty busloads and hundreds of cars and vans from all over Ontario were headed to Hamilton January 29, in support of steelworkers on the picket line since early November. The rally is being organized jointly by USW Local 1005, the Hamilton and District Labour Council, and the Ontario Federation of Labour, which mobilized Labour Councils and affiliates across the province.

The “People vs. US Steel” rally is to support 900 locked-out Local 1005 members, as well as 9,000 retirees whose pensions will be de‑indexed if US Steel has its way. The company also wants to exclude new hires from the defined benefit pension plan. In a 2007 letter to union members, US Steel had promised to properly fund and protect the plan, because unlike others, it understood the value of good pensions to employees. Clearly, this letter was just part of a cynical propaganda campaign to convince Canadians to support the foreign takeover of Stelco operations. The cost of the purchase was $1.2 billion – the exact cost of the pension plan.

Read more »