Zaragoza-Brussels march for social rights

It began last Saturday and it's expected to reach Brussels on September 27 after many journeys varying from 17 to more than 50 kilometers, mostly through France.

People who wish to join for whatever length is asked to write to marchaabruselas@gmail.com, including name, mail address, telephone and journeys planned to take part in, or calling to telephone +34-679213259. Marchers are expected to bring their luggage, shoes, basic aid kit and sleeping utilities (sleeping bag, tent). A van accompanies the march to take care of luggages and people who need to rest.

The slogan is "March to Brussels. Against labor reform, for social rights" and one for the callers is anarcho-syndicalist union CGT, a splinter of the historical CNT (they mention other organizations but I have not been able to find out yet).



More photos and info (in Spanish) at CGT (includes detailed schedule and other info) and Rojo y Negro (photos).

From the second site:

We march against the spoliation of working classes and the destruction and privatization of the public sector in all Europe.

We march against Labor Reform and social cuts in the State of Spain.

We march against the Spanish government and the rest of European governments, who reduce salaries to public employees, freeze salaries, freeze pensions, increase VAT equally for the rich and the poor.

AND ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE, we march because taxes are not being raised for the rich, fiscal paradises are not being destroyed, submerged economy is not being persecuted, tax fraud is not being attacked, no responsibilities are demanded to those who have caused the crisis, no embargoes nor prison are being applied against bankers, speculators and billionaires who are taking the public money.

Yet another labor activist murdered in Colombia. Yet another mass grave found.

Germán Restrepo, 58, president of the packagers' union was murdered yesterday in the city of Medellín, where he lived and worked.

He is the last one of a long list of labor unionists murdered in Colombia in the last years: 547 since 2002, 32 in 2010 alone.

As denounced by the president of Unitary Workers' Central (CUT), Tarsicio Mora, many of those crimes remain without any investigation at all.

Medellín, the second largest Colombian city, remains one of the most dangerous places in the country, with death squads and criminal gangs acting impunely.

Source: Agencia de Prensa Rural[es]


Another mass grave found in the Colombian NE

The same site reports that yet another mass grave has been discovered in the department of César, near the Venezuelan border. 140 bodies were recovered,, mostly women, all them victims of the paramilitary terror that plagues the country with the consent and support of the state.

It is estimated that some 140,000 people have been victim of paramilitary terror only in this department. This figure does not include displaced persons.

Could the Louisiana catastrophe had been prevented by a unionized workforce?

That is what In Defense of Marxism seems to think and to me their arguments are self-evident:

Much is said in the news about the disastrous situation that now exists in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. An ecological disaster of gigantic proportions has been created by the profit motive, which is what drives the BP executives. However, were the company to be thoroughly unionised, with workers’ representatives controlling every level of safety, this disaster could have been averted.

Amidst the acres of newsprint about the Deepwater Horizon blowout little has been said about those who are most affected - the BP workforce.

The mood in Sunbury, in the BP head offices, is a mixture of denial and anxiety, expressed in a bitter gallows humour and blunt cynicism. Long-term employees have had several decades of management cock-ups, re-organisations, cut backs, more re-organisations, and more cut-backs. Everywhere, whether in the office decor or the lines on people’s faces, are the symptoms of 20 years of lucrative deals at the top which eventually have brought this company to its knees. Nobody - nobody - is surprised at what has happened. Every long term employee knows what lies behind this disaster. Since the 1990s the company has been running on thin air, vital services have been outsourced, and quality, like the pipelines, has decayed. "The new paradigm", the Thatcherite policy of cutting to the bone and outsourcing to the cheapest bidder, has turned into the old paradigm - long hours, poor quality, insecurity and stress.

Read full article at IDOM.


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Update (Jul 25): You may also want to read this article of similar content at RandomPottins: If they had listened to workers, maybe there'd have been no disaster, and BP would not need to be "buying" scientists. (Suggested by Joe, at comments).

Police attacks workers' picket in Pamplona, unprovoked, injuring 25

It happened in the context of protests against the opening in holidays. Several large commercial centers (MediaMarkt, El Corte Inglés, Decathlon and others) had decided unilaterally and against all labor unions to open yesterday, sunday. Labor unions, for once united beyond ethnic lines, organized pickets against such corporative abuse and, in Pamplona, they decided to focus in El Corte Inglés creating a picket of some 600 people that chanted slogans and informed workers of their theoretical rights.

The picket was all the time under tight police control but at certain moment, the police chief returned with reiforcements and charged wildly against them, "without any sort of provocation", surprising even their own colleagues that were all the time on the spot.

El Corte Inglés is a large Spanish corporation created by a shadowy mafious individual of the Fascist era, that is infamous for its abusive labor policies (persecution of any sort of unionism, horrible working conditions) and for bribing the media with huge publicity campaigns so they don't criticise them. It was probably the corporation itself who pulled the strings so the police attacked the picket.

The unprovoked charge caused 25 victims, some of them elderly people. In spite of the attack the picket continued its action all the morning and continued at evening. The strike is also being called for today with further mobilizations. Many employees however had to work under threats of being fired.

Nevertheless the four trade unions (ELA, LAB, UGT and CC.OO.) considered the strike very positive with most workers seconding it and with many trade centers yielding to the workers' demands in advance and not opening this sunday. But they denounced the attitude of El Corte Inglés and its threats to the workers, demanding the intervention of the Work Inspection office in this regard.

Source: Gara.

Basque Unions call General Strike

The majority of Southern Basque labor unions have called for a single-day general strike on May 21st.

The unions Basque Workers' Solidarity (ELA), Patriotic Workers' Union (LAB), Left Union Coordination (ESK), Teaching Workers' Union of the Basque Country (STEE-EILAS) and the transport union HIRU (meaning "Three" for the number of provincial unions confederated originally) consider that the situation of the economy and its brutal repercussions on the working class (unemployement already approaches 20% by official figures) demand class mobilization in order to make sure that it is not the workers who pay for the faults of the capitalist speculators. They argue that, while in other European countries, like France, Greece or Italy, workers have already gone out to the streets demanding solutions that do not damage the popular classes, in the Spanish state, where the impact of the crisis is possibly one of the most brutal worldwide, the mainstream unions are acting sheeply.

These Spanish unions, the General Workers' Union (UGT) and the Worker Comitees (CC.OO.), have instead called for working in such day. Alligning themselves with the corporations' speakers. They argue that the strike is not justified.

10 years ago, in May 21st 1999, the same alliance of Basque Unions called for another general strike, then in demand of the 35 hours journey that had been implemented in France but not in Spain. The strike was a massive success.

Basque unions, much more militant than their Spanish counterparts, so dependent on state subsidies, have been steadily growing in representation and affiliation in the last decades. Among their demands is that of a Basque-specific national legal and negotiating framework.

Source: Gara.

By the way:

HAPPY MAY DAY!



We shall overcome!

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And the biggest loser is...

... a young Portuguese man, who has a mortgage that will be paid only when he is 72 years old and spends 65% of his salary to pay it. He got the prize to the Most Inhuman Mortgage, consisting of a 30 euro ticket for books and a copy of the Spanish Constitution (which sarcastically states that all citizens have the 'right' to a decent home).

... a young Canarian woman who signed 10 succesive labor contracts lasting two days each, all with the same company in just month and a half (45 days). She got the prize to the Most Precarious Contract. She also got a 30 euro ticket for books and a copy of the Workers' Statute, which states her theoretical rights.

Both symbolic prizes were given in the 1st Municipal Contest to the Most Inhuman Mortgage and the Most Precarious Contract of Puerto de La Cruz (Tenerife, Canary Islands) organized by the local assembly of United Left in the context of the International Youth's Day (August 12th).

Source: Rebelión.