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, Vigiles-AT-aol.com, giltapia-AT-igc.apc.org, SDrury8183-AT-aol.com, 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. ________________________________________________________________ --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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