File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9704, message 41


Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 18:51:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Spoon Collective <spoons-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: May Day Greetings! (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 06:14:15 GMT
From: Keith Standring <itusc-AT-gn.apc.org>
To: Donal Guerin <STSI8015-AT-bureau.ucc.ie>, llb-AT-atomism.demon.co.uk,
    iww.news-AT-conf.gn.apc.org, aut-op-sy-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU,
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    flexerj-AT-web.net, Rhonda <rsuss-AT-web.net>,
    Steve Ballard <100741.3415-AT-compuserve.com>, labornet-AT-labornet.org,
    kaou-AT-anet.fr, t.brotherstone-AT-abdn.ac.uk,
    Curtis Price <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>, esx030-AT-coventry.ac.uk,
    s0gp-AT-exnet.co.uk, goforth-AT-igc.apc.org, awl-AT-gn.apc.org,
    outlook-AT-gn.apc.org, JSWraight-AT-aol.com,
    Afshin Rattansi <afshinr-AT-dircon.co.uk>,
    Richard Gibson <rgibson-AT-pipeline.com>, redpepper-AT-online.rednet.co.uk,
    labornews-AT-igc.apc.org, Tony Budak <abudak-AT-alumni.ysu.edu>,
    Trade Union Studies <tus-AT-reid-kerr.ac.uk>
Subject: May Day Greetings!

 MAY DAY 1997- UNITES THE STRUGGLES
 Together with our fellow workers, we say - on May Day 1997 - the class
struggle is as alive as ever it was and in the choice between the barbarism
which capital inflicts on humanity or Socialism - We choose Socialism!
 The ITUSC sends warm, fraternal greetings, to our comrades, sisters and
brothers in the workers' movement throughout the world, on May Day 1997- the
international celebration of workers' struggles. 
  We have entered a period in which capitalism has no more room to expand.
Though consistently ignored by economists, this is a real truth of the
so-called globalisation. The system has run out of options. The enormous
growth in the productivity of labour, resulting from the last half-century's
advances in science and technique, imperiously demands a method of social
control by the direct producers in free mutual association, planning their
long-term relationship with the resources of nature instead of plundering
them mercilessly and dangerously as does capital in the search for profit,
and allowing ample free time for all for cultural development for all. 
  Against this necessity, capital demands that all production, distribution
and consumption and all human culture be subordinated to the freedom of
capital to exploit labour. This means repressive political restrictions,
attacks on democratic rights, and the strengthening of that legitimised
monopoly of violence called the state. These are the very opposite of what
humanity at this stage of its development requires.
  The enemy which all workers face is capitalism. The deepening crisis of
the capitalist system is not cyclical or episodic as in the past, it is
structural and gives rise to ever more brutal and frenzied attacks by the
ruling class on workers in many countries of the world.
   The basic and elementary demands of the mass of the people - work in
human conditions, a decent standard of living, free time, housing,
health-care, security in old age, freedom of expression, of organisation and
of movement, and so on - can no longer be conceded and are everywhere under
attack. 
  These basic demands - of those defending the environment, of trade
unionists, of the unemployed, of the old and the young, of the peoples of
colonial and semi-colonial countries -cannot any longer be tolerated and
integrated into the capitalist system.
  Those who fight for these demands must expect to come under attack from
the repressive forces of the state. The necessity of their national and
international solidarity, combining against those attacks and turning
defence into attack is a solid objective basis for the reconstruction of the
working-class movement. This is especially true in Britain, where workers
have had legal shackles imposed by the Tories and face the continued use and
extension of these anti-union and anti-working class laws promised by New
Labour. 
  This crisis is global in the sense of universal and threatening the end of
humanity. Throughout the world there is a growing militancy and organisation
amongst workers and their allies in the anti-capital struggles.
  Our class must overcome the traditional division between the political and
industrial wings of the workers' movement and develop, like the Liverpool
dockers have done, a political/industrial strategy. Trade unionists have for
too long been willing to leave political matters to the politicians; to
continue to do so is dangerous to the workers' movement.
  The trade union movement cannot pretend any longer to remain
"non-political". The economic struggle of the working class is today more
than ever bound up completely with a political struggle against the
capitalist class. The existence of anti-trade union laws, as well as the
state banning of trades unions in many countries, alone makes this
inevitable. The aim of the unions must be to mobilise the whole of the
working class against the power of capital.
  Naturally, this is impossible without a fundamental change of relations
within the trade union movement. This will involve a determined fight
against the trade union bureaucracy that increasingly usurps power from the
membership of the movement in order to subordinate the interests of the
working class directly to the needs of capital.   The ITUSC is dedicated to
promoting this process of rebuilding the trade unions and reconstructing the
working class movement internationally.
  On this May Day 1997 we trade unionists should commit ourselves to
rebuilding the workers' movement and  to the removal of sectarianism and
division in working class organisations. We should redouble our fight for
workers' internationalism, democracy in trade unions and for unions
independent of the state and employers. 
  To overthrow capitalism and replace the barbarism it inflicts on humanity
is the foremost challenge facing the working-class.
  This May Day, let us all accept the challenge to assist the struggle and
fight for maximum unity, alongside all workers and toilers and their
communities of resistance, wherever they are, now and in the future. 

Unite the struggles!
Forward to socialism!
Victory to workers' internationalism!

Keith Standring, General Secretary.     ) International Trade 
Peter Gibson, President.                     ) Union Solidarity
Yadollah Khoshrashahi, Vice-President ) Campaign (ITUSC)












________________________________________________________________
International Trade Union Solidarity Campaign (ITUSC) at:-
PO Box 18, Epsom, Britain KT18 7YR
Tel/Fax:  ++44 (0) 1372 817778
e-mail:  itusc-AT-gn.apc.org
URL: http://www.itusc.org.uk 
The ITUSC is an international and internationalist association of organised
workers and communities, dedicated to rebuilding the workers' movement and
to overcoming sectarianism and division in working class organisations.
________________________________________________________________





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