September and October 2014, COMMUNICATION Nº 7

CONTENTS:

Comrades, I give an account of what has been done since COMMUNICATION 6:

A) OF THE GENERAL SECRETARIAT (SG) .-

1. It took the initiative, to which the majority of members of the Executive Board of TUI gave positive response, sending 300 €, the limited finances of the TUI, for solidarity with Palestine organized by the WSF. Take this opportunity to remember the importance of each union to pay dues of 2014.

2. We have spread the document that summarizes, in Spanish, the work being done in Euskadi by P&R LAB Union, affiliated to the WFTU.

3. As Secretary General of the TUI I participated, together with the Secretary of Finances of the Spanish Union of P&R CSU, the comrade Mercè Escudé, in celebration of the International Day of Action October 3 held in Lisbon on October 3 and 4. I sent varied information. I include as Annex 1 the text of my speech in Lisbon, and as Annex 2 other documents handed out in Lisbon concerning the reality of CCOO in the Spanish state.

4. Taking advantage of the trip to Lisbon, explained in the previous section, we have visited (Mercè and me) a part of class unions of the Spanish State. This time the periphery of Spain: LAB and ESK (Euskadi, Basque Country), CSI-current Left Association (Asturias), CUT and IGC (Galicia), SAT and SDT (Andalusia). They have said that will help the success of the First European Conference P&R TUI. In Galicia,
the Union organized a rally to give continuity to the presence of the WSF in the struggle of the workers of the international company Citroën (Vigo) against dismissal of union leaders. In Andalusia organized two public events. I have sent pictures and posters. The Unions visited have not paid anything of the journey, except stay in Lisbon, so Mercè and I have spent (our personal money, never reclaim the WFTU P&R) 1,500 € 4,500 km in a 16 day tour.

5. I started preparing the dossier to present to the ILO to be recognized by the ILO as an international organization. So we have the right to speak before the plenary of the forthcoming Conference of the ILO, to spread the struggle of P&R worldwide.

6. We have already received three fees from 2014, the Greek PAME, and the Spanish CSU and Jubiqué. It is necessary that the other Unions pay their fair share, by the end of 2014.

7. According to the Financial Secretary has launched a campaign to raise funds for P&R WFTU. See Annex 3 for the basic document of this campaign. In Spain a friend of TUI P&R WFTU has already provided € 200 for this season.

8. According to the President of the UIS, Comrade Koumpouris Dimos, has asked the comrades at Bahrain if it is possible to hold the annual meeting of the board of TUI P&R there in February 2015 (as offered at the end of the Barcelona Congress). Each member of the Direction (all who receive this COMMUNICATION Nº 7) must confirm, when receiving the invitation letter, his willingness and possibilities of presence at the meeting, so the meeting may be is as useful as possible.

9. From November 11 to December 4 I will have a "break" (a tourist trip) to Cuba. Besides resting I hope to have some meetings with the CTC and its pensioners. My internet connection will be more sporadic than usual.

10. In response to the Union of Panama CNTP request, greetings to its XVIII Congress was sent on behalf of TUI P&R. See the text sent at Annex 4.

11. According to the Propaganda Secretary of the PAME, greetings were sent to show our internationalist solidarity with the demonstration on November 1 (supported by nearly 1,000 organizations) and the general strike for late November.

B) WORK OF OTHER MEMBERS DIRECCIÓN.-

1. The comrades of PAME in Greece called back activities on the streets, to give continuity to the actions of last June, and thus prepared their participation in the International Day for October 3rd.

2.- Argentina’s comrades continue to take the streets every Wednesday and getting more and more popular support for the claims of P&R.

3. In Argentina, we are syndically fighting against the attempt to punish our comrade and member of the board of TUI, Marcos Wolman. As WFTU we are following their fight, which receives widespread support in the country. The last received Comrade Wolman's quote: "In the audience that was cited by the prosecutor in the case, along with my lawyers I presented a written release. During the course of the hearing that is private, at the street congregated fellows from Retiree Organizations, Unions, Social, national and international human rights defenders, national deputies, alternative media, and others. Comrades, your concern for the development of this case is further evidence of international solidarity, against an injustice that aims to halt our struggle. Thank you very much all our TUI P&R WFTU. Solidarity is the only way, and we are convinced that we will achieve what we set out. "

4. There have been several places where P&R participated in the International Day of Action, October 3, organized by the WFTU. But there have been very few who have sent written or graphic information.

5. In Ecuador CTE continues to prepare the First American Regional Conference of Trade Unions P&R class.

ANNEX 1.-

THE PENSIONERS AND RETIREES PARTICIPATE AND WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE STRUGGLES OF THE WFTU

Comrades.

I speak on behalf of the new TUI (Trade Union International) of the WFTU. I mean that was created in Barcelona last February with the presence of some 100 union Pensioners and Retirees (P&R) from dozens of countries on five continents.

Is the tenth TUI of the WFTU, in order of creation, but the bringing together trade unionists with more years of experience of class struggle. A struggle in which we form this TUI wish to continue participating until we exhaust the strength to keep struggling.

We are Pensioners and Retirees, and we don’t depend on an employer, either public or private. We organize our time in terms of our personal objectives, and as members of the FSM these goals are the destruction of capitalism and end imperialism. We have struggled for decades to do.

October 3 this is the first in which we operate as TUI in actions Internationalist Struggle Day. From Australia; through India, Pakistan, Nepal and other countries in Asia; in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Middle East; through Greece, France and Spain in Europe; from Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal in Africa; passing many Latin American countries: Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina; and more.

We demand an adequate pension enough to live with dignity. Claim public services (which generate stable jobs in health, education, leisure, transport, assistance to people with disabilities, etc.), we demand lower retirement age (for young now they can access unemployment jobs that occupy the elderly). This compares with the proposals of the Troika, here in Portugal, and in Europe, is showing that the IMF plus the EU, the European Central Bank more, just want to increase the benefits (that’s are astronomical) of multinationals while most populations are decreasing their quality of life.

The pursuit of claims that we adopted in our Founding Congress as TUI will not only result in better living conditions for P&R but will also help to target the WFTU that people who want to work have a job indefinitely, stable job and with proper working conditions.

Capitalism just like the existence of pensioners exists for private pension plans, and so makes them great benefits. I think I must denounce unions ITUC International Trade Union Confederation, which support the existence of these private pension plans, such as the CCOO and UGT in Spain (these unions have also signed several times, the last few years, repeated cuts in favor of the rights of pensioners).
For capitalism the P&R should live few years enjoying our retirement. We are no longer productive, and represent a significant expense in state budgets. So while the president of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) stated that P&R are no longer productive, labor minister of Japan said on TV that his country should commit hara-kiri P&R (not me making it up, but said so seem outrageous) to die with dignity and not be a burden or their families or for public finances. That's the vision that operators and managers of capitalism people who have worked ten years providing our effort to improve society.

The struggle of P&R has not started now, is long lasting and will be, as the examples of Greece and Argentina. In the first take more than 60 years in unions organizing the P&R (on June 19 carried 20,000 to the streets of Athens), while in the second the P&R already carry almost 1,200 followed Wednesday demanding better living conditions before Parliament Buenos Aires, led by union P&R who attended our founding congress.

We are achieving significant victories in our claim, as in the case of Bolivia, where the union struggle has helped to attain the right to retire at age 55 men and 49 women with 3 or more children. But in some cases these victories have played tough battles as that given 2004 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where they killed 20 P&R they did a hunger strike with which they prevent to applying cutes in their right from the World Bank has impose to the president of the country.

We will continue to learn all the struggles, we will continue to strengthen the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist positions of the WFTU, and, until the last day of our lives, we will contribute to the struggle for socialism, which is the real goal for all those who live by their work.

LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE TO THE P&R!
LONG LIVE TO THE CGTP-IN! LONG LIVE TO THE WFTU! Lisbon, 3 and 4 October
2014.

ANNEX 2.-

CCOO IS NO LONGER A CLASS- CONSCIOUS TRADE UNION

For many readers, this statement may seem a very strong one, but it is also unfortunately so true that it is already difficult that this trade union could recover its former condition. Let’s not go into when CCOO ceased to be a class-conscious organization; let’s just remember that this trade union, founded 50 years ago, does no longer comply with the “necessary requirements for a class-conscious trade union” which were stated in its foundational documents.

This text’s approximately 4,000 characters which I have been told to limit myself to, won´t allow me to go into a detailed explanation. I will do that in future articles if I am given the chance to. But I want to review now, point by point, what CCOO was in its origins (when it was an important reference in Spain and abroad), and not what it has become today, making it clear, however, that I am talking about the trade union as a whole, and, especially, about its current leaders, and not about specific cases or about important sectors of the trade union’s base, which is honest and struggle-oriented (but whose voice is heard less and less by the leadership).

CCOO is no longer a class-conscious trade union, as it doesn´t defend the working class, the exploited, from the real attacks of its enemy, the ruling, bourgeois capitalist class. It denies the existence of class struggle by simply not talking about it (contrary to what it did in the past) in any of its documents, neither in its congress documents nor in its main resolutions. Moreover, it has acquired, in its “official language”, the terms used by the enemies of the working class; for instance, using “social agent” instead of social class.

CCOO is no longer an independent trade union capable of helping workers to realize that they are exploited and that the added value of what they produce is taken away from them. Its training courses depend not only on EU and bourgeois governments’ subsidies, but its contents do not include anything that may contradict the capitalist concepts about society.

CCOO is no longer a democratic union, as its leaders, through their decisions, do not respect their workers´ opinions. In most cases, the affected workers´ claims are not even taken into account (the recent conflict at PANRICO is, among many others, one of the most recent and painful examples), and, even if workers are consulted, their opinions are put aside if they don´t agree with those of the leaders.

CCOO is no longer a trade union that represents the working class after having signed many Social Pacts whose execution follows the employers’ claims. One of the most outrageous and recent ones has been the acceptance of the new cutbacks in pensions, especially bearing in mind the fact that there´s enough money for them.

CCOO is no longer an assembly-style organization. It continuously takes its decisions without calling the necessary assemblies in which to discuss and develop the much needed debates as the only way to reach true agreements based on workers´ points of view and demands. Its last assembly-style decision was taken during the 1980s in Catalonia, when assemblies were called in all its regions to decide whether or not the Social Pact was accepted. Most of the workers voted “NO” to the agreement, while, at the end, the leadership voted “YES” at the Spanish national meeting.

CCOO is no longer a participatory trade union, as its leaders draft in their offices their proposals for the negotiations, trying afterwards to present them as the best possible proposal for the workers. In reality, the current CCOO leadership does not hold any consultations with their affiliates prior to signing major agreements with the governments (headed by PP or PSOE) and the employers.

CCOO is no longer an unitary trade union because it doesn´t strive for the union among the various trade unions, while, at the same time, accepts the division imposed to the working class by the employers. At this point I want to mention different agreements signed by CCOO, as the one at Pirelli, signed at the end of the XX century, in which it accepted different payment and working conditions based on seniority in the company and on other criteria.

CCOO is no longer a struggling trade union. It never calls to actions really useful in order to force the employers to yield to the just claims of the workers. During the last years, it has just called actions (strikes and demonstrations) only to justify its own existence, but not as a useful tool in the hands of the working class.

CCOO is no longer a socio-political trade union, as it doesn´t take part –only once in a while and always following other organizations’ steps– in neighborhood struggles or in any other conflicts connected with solidarity, housing or environmental claims that used to be part of its agenda in the past.

CCOO is no longer an internationalist trade union, as it doesn´t stand for unity of the working class beyond the national borders established by the bourgeoisie in order to keep the world capitalist system, and no longer criticizes (as it used to do) imperialism imposed by capitalism in order to steal raw materials from the peoples of the world, as the colonists did in the past. The most outrageous recent example of this attitude lies in the support given by CCOO (through its partnership at the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) to military actions during the invasion of Libya by NATO.

I don´t want to analyze the sad and numerous cases of corruption in which several member of CCOO are involved, or to make any further comment on the fact that the two general secretaries following Marcelino Camacho, Antonio Gutierrez Vegara and José María Fidalgo, have respectively ended at the ranks of PSOE and PP. This is the logical outcome of the abandonment of the class-conscious positions.

Quim Boix Lluch, founder member and former national leader of CCOO, and current leader of the WFTU (CP, Presidential Council), General Secretary of TUI of Pensioners and Retirees (P&R);

ANNEX 3.-

Circular of the Secretariat of Finance of TUI of P&R of WFTU

Dear comrades:

The delicate financial situation in which our UIS is found forces this Secretariat to look back on previous circulars and to introduce new proposals so that we have a minimum financial base to
be able to carry out the most urgent tasks that the growing union activity of our UIS is demanding.

It is necessary to say in this introduction, with affection but with firmness and responsibility, that none of the recommendations or suggestions have been fulfilled, recommendations that, applying the Statutes approved in the First Congress, we did in previous communiqués, referring to the finances according to the number of affiliated members of each organization and to the quotas that derived from that.

Except for four organizations that have been loyal compliant of the congressional agreements and that have had and have sensibility and understanding about the finances, the other organizations have not responded, neither have they explained their impossibility to comply with the mutually binding principle of the economic aid.

This Secretariat wants to indicate that, after the Congress, the only expenses of our UIS have been the active solidarity with Palestine and a trip of our Secretary General to Greece to preside the fight of 20,000 PyJ of that country. The trip of 4,500 Km carried out by Quim Boix for the development of the UIS by Spain and Portugal has cost nothing to the UIS: it was paid by him and his partner.

The many pending matters for the next months make the financial contributions from the organizations of the UIS of P and J immensely urgent. Among these pending matters there is the celebration of the statutory annual meeting of the Executive Committee, to be carried out in Bahrein, and the planned activities in Africa and America.

In order to help the organizations to collect money as quickly as possible this Secretariat suggests to ask for money directly to people or organizations that either are affiliated to the UIS or that are sympathizers with or friends of the UIS.

These practices have already been carried out in some of the affiliated unions and have given a good result (for instance, to finance the Foundational Congress in Barcelona).

It´s because of it that we invite all the receivers of this Circular to start carrying out the arrangements indicated further up in this paragraph, given the urgency of the financial situation already indicated in previous lines.

Let's also recollect, by means of this momentary farewell, that this Secretariat does not have any information referring to the names and e-mails of the people responsible for the finances of the unions affiliated to our UIS. To provide this Secretariat with this does not it cost any money and helps in the organization.

Awaiting your prompt response to all suggestions of this Secretariat, the responsible of the Secretariat of Finances says goodbye to you with a strong trade unionist internationalist hug.

José Maria Lucas Ranz.
Responsible of finances secretariat of TUI of P&R of WFTU
Spain, October 29, 2014

ANNEX 4.-

Greet the XVIII Congress of the CNTP

From Spain, and on behalf of the UI (Union International) Pensioners and Retired (P &R) of the (WFTU), I greet Elberto Cobos, secretary general of the CNTP, and through it all congressmen. You made XVIII Congress at a time when capitalism is showing with its structural and systemic crisis, his inability to be the future of Humanity. We analyze the 3rd of October in the WFTU Association Conference held in Portugal to celebrate 69 years since its foundation and to continue the fight against unemployment.

There, union members from 5 continents we set as a goal the destruction of capitalism, which is the cause of all the great evils (including imperialist wars) suffering peoples of the planet. To do all the exploited, led by class unions, are cooperating with organizations fighting for socialism, a society without exploited or exploiters.

A society in which everyone has enough to live decently and each should contribute according to their abilities. A society in which people over 60 years (a figure that in the future may reduce to 55, as it has done Evo Morales in Bolivia) have sufficient state pension to live a decent life. A society that if someone cannot find work either public administration that ensures the salary and contribution to his pension.

We, pensioners and retirees from five continents, we founded this tenth UI WFTU, accumulated decades of experience in the trade union struggle, and we know that despite the difficulties, and in the end it will be the working class that expire . It cannot be otherwise, since a world without workers would not work, while a world without exploiters is not only possible but it is also necessary and soon.

We repeat the greeting of union veterans from around the globe to its XVIII Congress.

LIVE LA CNTP! LIVE LA FSM! CLASS SOLIDARITY

LIVE INTERNATIONALIST! Barcelona on November 1, 2014.

ANNEX 5.-

Solidarity with PAME and all the Greek workers

The International Trade-union of the Pensioners and Retired of the WFTU expresses its solidarity and its support for the actions being established in Greece against unemployment and against the antisocial policies of the government and the Troika.

We salute the strong efforts put in place for the national rally set to take place on November 1st 2014 in Athens; we salute the participation of more than 844 organizations, trade-unions, federations, farmers, women and youth associations from all Greece.

We also strongly support the general strike set to take place on November 27th 2014.
Unemployment is one of the most important subject with which we have to deal in this capitalist crisis. Governments have to guarantee retirement pensions for those who seek work and for whom capitalism does not provide any, those who seek work are not responsible for this capitalist crisis.

The TUI of P&R expresses its solidarity with the PAME, with heroic Greek workers and with the workers from all over the world who fight and struggle for their rights against capitalism.

Long live the trade-union of class!

Long live the working class of Greece!

Long live the working class of the world!

Long live the proletarian internationalism!

Long live the WFTU!

Barcelona 28-10-14

Quim Boix CP, Presidential Council of WFTU
General Secretary of TUI of Pensioner