Information note of the International Section of the CC of KKE on the role of ITUC and ETUC

To: Communist and Workers' Parties

The big capital and its governments throughout Europe launch a new offensive while the capitalist economic crisis is under way. Drastic reduction of wages, new taxes, reduction in pensions, further dismantling of the Social Security systems and attack on the working relations are at the forefront of this offensive. These measures are promoted under the pretext of the crisis and they are not temporary; they are permanent and they have been decided years ago on the basis of the EU-treaties, the first being the Treaty of Maastricht, and the Lisbon Strategy.

Under these conditions, the compromised forces within the labour, trade union movement that promote social partnership and class collaboration to workers hypocritically pretend to oppose to the anti-people attack and fight against these measures. These forces are the ITUC and ETUC, as well as the compromised confederations such as GSEE, the confederation of workers in the private sector in Greece, and ADEDY, the confederation of workers in the public sector, that have been officially participating in the discussions with the EU and the other imperialist organisations for decades, collaborating and deciding along with the monopolies how to promote the anti-people measures in each country. These efforts are also aided by several “foundations” such as the social democrat “Ebert foundation” that seek the manipulation of the trade unions on the basis of social consensus.

All of them have been committed to the EU plutocracy to do everything they can to disarm the movement and attack workers’ rights. For years they have signed along with the capitalists agreements for reduction in wages and pensions, dismissals, tax breaks for the capital. They spread illusions that there can be capitalism with human face, that the markets can be regulated and controlled and that they will tackle speculation which is an inherent element and norm of the exploitative system. They propose demands that serve the profitability of the employers while they fully adopt the line of the capital’s profitability, the antagonism. The reformist and opportunist forces, the forces of yellow trade unionism that support the ITUC regard the mobilizations it organizes for the 24th March, which are fully in line with the objectives of the EU capital as a “milestone” .

Nevertheless, it is not only that these forces are incapable of organizing the workers’ resistance. They also seek to pass the class collaboration in the ranks of the working people, to disorient them; they turn against the people’s interests, they are on the other side. This stance should be revealed even if they make hypocritical maneuvers under the pressure of the class oriented forces and the workers’ stance that ultimately lead to the disappointment and the demobilisation of the working and popular masses.

The experience of KKE and its struggle in Greece highlight that the emancipation and regroupment of the labour movement require the strengthening of the struggle against the representatives of the capital in the trade union movement. The working people must reinforce the forces that struggle in a class oriented line, strengthen the organisation in the workplaces and the struggle against the plutocracy and the anti-people policy. The popular movement should not expect anything from the ITUC and the ETUC. They have been in the service of capital and they will do so in the future. Their interventions, their mobilizations have the aim to control the workers reaction, to manipulate the working people and hinder the development of the class struggle.

The need to form a unified strategy of the class oriented forces and their coordination at international level through the ranks of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is nowadays in the agenda. The conflict between the class oriented forces and the forces of consensus, “social partnership” and “reformism” actually lead to that point. This conflict will decisively strengthen the WFTU and lead to the emancipation of the class oriented forces.

The experience so far stresses the necessity to coordinate the mass action in the workplaces, in the people’s neighborhoods in order to give a resolute response to the coordinated attack of the EU capital and the bourgeois government. The working people are the ones who produce the wealth and they must assert it.

8/3/10
International Section of the CC of KKE