Argentina - November 14 2022

After the enormous struggle of the tire workers

The task of the moment is to weld the unity of the divided ranks of the working class, on the path of a revolutionary alliance with the impoverished layers of the middle classes

For a Cordinating body of those who fight to defeat the US-servant bureaucracy and its social pact with the government and big business

The revision of collective bargains -with increases that almost reach inflation- came after the tough struggle of SUTNA, which not only defeated the attack on their conquests by the bosses, the union bureaucracy, the government and the US ambassador Mr. Stanley, but threatened to open a wave of strikes for wages in the main trade unions in the country.
With the new collective bargains in Truckers, UTA and other unions, the government and the union bureaucracy anticipated a nightmare scenario, which could end in a generalized struggle of the working class for wages and decent work for all, in the heat of an unbearable increase in the cost of living.

But those agreements are a trap. Not even the highest collective bargains of the bureaucracy beat inflation: while the capitalists have profits indexed with weekly remarks, the workers charge increases in quotas every two or three months -with luck-, calculated on salaries devalued from months ago. And all this while 60% of the working class is unregistered, with wages of $60 or $70 thousand pesos or just unemployed!
Massa’s plan, dictated by Stanley and the IMF and supported by Kirchner, is not only to convert Argentina into an exporter of raw materials to the world market to pay the foreign debt, but also to guarantee an Argentina “maquila” of cheap workers to the UIA. Since 2018, the average registered waged has dropped from U$D 920 to U$D 500.
The slaveholders of Toyota, Ford, Rocca, Madanes, Pérez Companc & Co. make fortunes!
Fernandez and Massa pass the “maquila plan” with a ferocious labor flexibilization in the majority of the working class by agreements with the bureaucracy in each union or directly under the employer’s whip on the unregistered workers. The auto parts and automotive companies take young people under contract, totally flexible, with working hours and maquila wages. In addition, they have the risk of being fired when the employer wants.

This conspiracy by Pignanelli (SMATA) and Caló-Furlán (UOM) with the companies is an example of how the bureaucracy guarantees police control of the labor movement to the capitalists and surrender our conquests. That is the social pact and the state-ization of the unions.
Due to the betrayal of the bureaucracy, the working class emerged from the pandemic and previous crises (2018-2021) with a tiny unionized minority of no more than 15% or 20% and an absolute flexible majority, in a country with millions in chronic unemployment and unbearable inflation. These scabs left the working class torn between employed and unemployed, contracted and without contract, registered and unregistered in precarious conditions. It is a historic betrayal.

No conciliation with the bosses and their politicians as the UOM traitors propose

Furlán and the UOM bureaucracy organized a rally with Kirchner to tell the metalworkers that they have to surrender their wages and support that US-servant employer, who in 2015 left power with dozens of workers murdered for fighting, the oil workers from Las Heras sentenced to life, Julio López disappeared and more than 7,500 comrades prosecuted. They want to tie the fate of the working class and its interests to Cristina and the bosses’ politicians!
That rally is a strategic defeat for the labour movement. The UOM traitors have placed the heaviest industrial battalion at the feet of Kirchner and the government.
But even in this rally of traitors and snitches, the base of the bureaucracy had to ask for a raise to Kirchner, who assures that she want to deceive the workers by saying that collective bargains works but that it must be complemented with a bonus at the end of the year for the lower wages.
The policy of these scabs is to pass off Cristina as a “progressive” bourgeoisie allied with the workers and they call for a vote for her “so that the right does not return.” How much cynicism. This government is at the service of Wall Street, as much as Macri’s was. Massa is a man from the US embassy and Cristina openly supports him. The union bureaucrats are under the discipline of Stanley, who is the head of PRO-UCR and the government of which they themselves are part. These agents of the bosses and the US embassy of the unions must be thrown out! Down with the union bureaucracy!

The fight for wages, work and against labor flexibility is only one...
Down with the economic plan of Massa, the IMF and the capitalists!
National Coordinating Body to unite those who fight!
Down with the union bureaucracy and its social peace pact with the enslavers!

Today the wage increases are devastated by inflation with which the employer quickly recovers all wage concessions. The fight against inflation shows that without attacking the property of the capitalists, any conquest will be ephemeral and temporary.
In a country totally bankrupt and plundered by imperialism and the big capitalists, not even the slightest conquest can be taken from the exploiters without confronting the government in a great political struggle that unifies the ranks of the workers, as was shown by the trend opened by the struggle of the tire workers. Under these conditions, any partial conquest comes as a by-product of a struggle that threatens the bosses and their politicians with losing everything.
To fight for wages and decent work for all and end precariousness, it is necessary to unite the employed and the unemployed and their fighting organizations. The PTS in the FIT-U is calling to set up a Coordinator of Struggle and a national meeting of employed and unemployed workers. Although we consider that it is an electoral maneuver in the middle of their internship with the PO, even so, we are willing to promote, together and boldly, this call, which is what the workers need to fight and succeed.
We believe that, beyond the speculations of the apparatuses that end up tearing apart the vanguard in their union meetings, to face the colossal attack by the capitalists we must concentrate the forces of the vanguard independently of the state, the bosses and, of course, fighting for ending the union bureaucracy of the PJ in the unions.
The fellow workers from Buenos Aires port Terminal 5 have been calling for coordination. Nothing prevents the port, health workers, unemployed movements, etc. meet to set up a National Coordinator under a single list of demands, which begins by declaring war on the union and piquetero bureaucracy and its infamous social pact.

A Minimum Living Moving Wage of $260,000 pesos for everyone, indexed month by month according to inflation; the 6-hour working day and one more shift in all factories and establishments, without wage cut; the transfer to full contracted workers of all those hired and precarious, are basic demands to prevent the workers from continuing to pay for the crisis.
From a National Coordinator body we will be able to convene a congress of grassroots mandated delegates from the entire labor movement, to prepare a great mass struggle with shutdowns, pickets and a general strike, facing the exploited and the ruined middle classes, so that the crisis is paid for by the capitalists and not by the working people.
There is no other way. The wealth to guarantee the wellbeing and dignity of the exploited can only come from the expropriation of the oligarchy and breaking with the IMF and Wall Street bankers.
The nationalization of the land without payment could guarantee cheap food and put the fabulous agrarian income at the service of the exploited people and not of a handful of parasites linked to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Breaking with the IMF and Wall Street would end the bleeding of the national wealth, not paying the foreign debt and nationalizing large transnationals that steal the nation like Cargill, ADM, Chevron, Barrick Gold, etc. without payment and under the control of their workers.
Workers’ control of all branches of industry and services must be established. Let the UIA slavers open the books, we want to see the super profits they have!

Of course, that workers’ Congress will even be the best place to discuss what to do in the face of the 2023 elections. There, the workers will be able to vote by show of hands what to do in the face of the elections and, if they so decide, put their best fighters as the candidates of the working class against the bosses’ parties. The electoral legality of the FIT-U should be at the disposal of this congress.
But there is a long way to go before the elections. Hunger, misery, looting and the bankruptcy of the nation do not wait. The workers’ vanguard must respond to this catastrophe before it is too late.

None of this is going to be achieved with elections or with laws in parliament, but by fighting as in the Chubutazo, the Cordobazo or 2001, that is, with the method of class struggle and the socialist revolution.
The capitalists are already opposing the government’s repression, supported by the same anti worker middle classes as Milei and the PRO who are asking for crackdown against the “planeros (social plans)” and the “pickets”. That is why unified self-defense committees of all the workers’ organizations must be set up immediately, while we fight for the freedom of the Mapuche comrades and the acquittal of Goodman, Romero, Arakaki and the Las Heras oil workers. There is no time to lose.
This is the contribution that, in the midst of so much dirt in the eyes of the workers, the Trotskyists of Democracia Obrera make to our class with these lines.

Editorial Board of Democracia Obrera of Argentina