Day 20th of the oil strike that raised the demands
of the entire labor movement
A “witness” strike that marked the way to confront the imperialist and Bolsonaro offensive, and which stopped the plan for layoffs and privatization…
WE ARE ALL OIL WORKERS!
We must unite the ranks of workers and exploited
With the oil workers at the helm, a Congress of
Rank and file delegates of the CUT, CTB, FS, CSP-Conlutas,
the homeless and the landless must be convened
US imperialism comes all the way in its Latin American backyard and wants to keep all the riches of Brazil. This privatization and looting attack on the nation, of handing out of strategic industries and natural resources, is commanded by Wall Street and the IMF. They have come to collect the fraudulent public debt that is already counting in the value of US $ 1 trillion, if external and internal debt are summed up, what is equivalent to 77.7% of GDP. The Bolsonaro-Maurão-Guedes-Moro government comes to impose all the plans of Trump and Wall Steet to make Brazil their colony.
Through this imperialist offensive, they want to advance in privatizing Petrobras, which comes from billing in 2019 US $ 4,000 million, and give it to the US oil companies Exxon and Chevron. To do this they want to move forward in liquidating the collective agreements, closing terminals and then reopening them privatized as it happened with the attempt to close Fafen de Paraná (Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory), and the refineries. This means thousands of layoffs and a doubled cost of living, since oil refining will remain in the hands of the transnational companies and the same will happen with the production of fertilizers for agribusiness. For this reason, the oil workers strike was a struggle that marked a key moment in the class struggle in Brazil. In addition to being the most important strike by oil workers, superior to the 1995 strike that prevented (former President Fernando H.) Cardoso from privatizing Petrobras, it was a strike that temporarily put a brake on the offensive of imperialism and the government, since it faced for 20 days the privatist plan of mass layoffs and attack on the collective agreements of the Labor Reform, unifying staff and outsourced, stopping production throughout the country.
What triggered the strike on last February 1 was the threat of closure of the Fafen (Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory) in Parana State, which would have meant 1,000 layoffs and the immediate privatization of the refineries. The oil workers are mostly outsourced, which is why the strike was forged in the unity of the outsourced and permanent staff; all the workers voted in their assemblies and in the pickets. So it also broke the levees of the containment of the union leaderships that have always dedicated themselves to turning their backs on the outsourced and the unemployed, while they are handing over one by one the conquests of the working class, paving the way for the bosses to finish impose the Labor and Social Security Reform.
This oil strike we consider a "witness fight", since it called into question the privatization plan, of flexibility and massive layoffs. There, the fight the working class and the exploited as a whole have ahead against their exploiters was largely determined.
The policy of the CUT bureaucracy was also made clear. It was played hour by hour to keep the strike isolated, averting unity among all the workers, to prevent the oil workers from being the vanguard of the working class as a whole in the conquest of the general strike.
The CUT leaderships intended to make a quick negotiation of the layoffs and begin to pave the way for the employers to sell the refineries and close Fafen. However, over 20,000 oil workers went on strike in 13 states, completely paralyzing production throughout the country.
In its second week the strike began to slow down the government and the slave plan. A threat of shortages of fuel and cooking gas was looming. And as the days passed, the oil workers began to be a reference for other unions that are also in the sights of the government and employers. On February 15, more than 60 thousand dockers of the Baixada Santista in massive assemblies at the doors of the union and shouting "we are going to show the federal government that the workers are united and we are not going to allow layoffs" voted for the full stoppage of the Port of Santos, the largest port in South America. A few days later, the truckers union also began to join the strike and demand a reduction in the price of fuel and raising the demand for "No to the privatization of Petrobras."
The union leaderships of the FUP-CUT (Single Petroleum Federation) and of the FNP-Conlutas (National Petroleum Federation) were totally overwhelmed by a huge rebellion by the oil workers that unified their fight against layoffs, job insecurity and the privatization move.
For this reason, the role of the FUP, led by the PT and the CP do B, was to dedicate hour by hour to keep the oil workers isolated and prevent them from joining the rest of the working class, and when the dockers and truckers began to join them, all the alarms were fired, which led to the opening of a negotiation in the Superior Labor Court.
In these 20 days of strike the enormous potential of the striking workers was demonstrated; they even burned thousands of notifications of dismissals publicly on the pickets and maintained the strike despite the fact that the bourgeois justice had declared it illegal, fining the union in more than 5 million dollars.
This alerted the government that expected the union leaders' truce with the government to prevail. At the same time, the strike collided with the Lula, PT, church and Moro-Bolsonaro agreement, sustained by the bureaucracy.
Until now, the government has been settling in the truce given by the union bureaucracy that tied the hands of the working class to face the fierce ongoing attack that has already been sitting in the labor reform and made progress in imposing the Social Security reform at the end of 2019. The workers were subject to the PT and Lula who openly support the government. In fact, Lula has been released in a pact with Bolsonaro-Moro to act as an escape valve to prevent all independent action by the working class.
The energies of the workers' base to mobilize all the oil workers was what sustained their struggle for 20 days. Their strength lay in the unified fight against layoffs, for the collective agreement, the move to permanent staff and against privatization. But their weakness was undoubtedly the leadership they had at their head, which played recklessly to isolate the strike and now in the negotiation in the TST it is preparing to definitively close all prospects to return to combat by keeping the ranks of the workers divided, while the government is preparing to attack the sectors one by one and guarantee the imperialist plan of looting, privatization, hunger and labor slavery.
Now the employers and the government have been forced to give up some of the demands in the negotiating table. At the meeting of February 21 in the TST it was agreed that the employers would suspend the closure of the Fafen until a new negotiation on March 6, the fine would be reduced by 95%, the thousands of lay-off notices that were sent during the period of the strike are provisorily annulled and the new work regimes that were intended to be imposed will be reviewed.
The employers and the government were forced to give up some demands but have not yet given up on the essential plan to privatize Petrobras to hand it over to Chevron and Exxon, as the Embraer has already been given up to Boeing. If the division of the worker ranks is maintained, the government will have a free rein to redouble its offensive. We can't allow it! If the attack on oil workers is imposed at times when they demobilize, it will be paid by the entire working class and the exploited. IT IS THEM OR US!
It's necessary to prepare the second round:
The oil workers have all the authority to call a Congress of rank and file delegates from all the union centrals, and of the Landless and the Homeless to prepare and conquer the general strike.
WE ARE ALL OIL WORKERS!
The 20,000 oil workers, the more than 50,000 dockers of the Baixada Santista fought against the dismissals, for the the collective bargain agreements, against the privatization, and unified between permanent staff and outsourced, paralyzing two key industries in the country. The government was beginning to be cornered by this phenomenal rebellion of the workers' bases, at a time when teachers, postal workers, and state workers are preparing to go on strike. So we must deepen the fight that has begun!
The CSP-Conlutas defends the prospect of conquering the streets again and organizing the General Strike to defeat the government. Let's do it! We must prevent the bureaucracy from dividing and subduing our struggle, by means of advancing in organizing and conquering the General Strike, in order to defeat the imperialist plan and overthrow this antilabor and slave-owner government. The fight to break the subjugation of the unions and worker organizations to the bourgeoisie is now on the order of the day. To the state, its justice and the arbitration of both, hands off our unions! Out with the sold out bureaucracy and all the collaborationist leaderships of our unions and organizations of struggle!
With the oil workers at their head, it is necessary to unify the ranks of the workers and the exploited, the former have all the authority to call a workers' and peasants' congress, of rank and file delegates of the CUT, CTB, CSP-Conlutas, from the movements of Homeless and the landless, setting up self-defense committees to defend ourselves against the repression of the state and its gunmen. From the bases of the CUT, CTB, FS, CSP-Conlutas, Inter-union and all the organizations of struggle of the working class and the exploited, it is necessary to organize Struggle Commands and Strike Committees unified by region and national level to conquer the general strike from north to south.
To defeat the Trump-Bolsonaro privatization plan, of layoffs, hunger, misery and slavery: everybody registered as permanent staff, and under collective agreement! Monthly wage worth Reais $ 5000 according to the family basket with a trigger clause for indexing it according to inflation!
It is necessary to put on the order of the day the fight for the expropriation without compensation and under the workers' control of all the mining, oil, port and metal transnational corporations, together with the demand for the renationalisation without compensation and under the workers' control of the Petrobras, Vale and of all the privatized former state assets.
Expropriation without compensation and under the control of the workers and the poor peasants of all the transnational agribusinesses, large estates and productive lands, to give land to the poor peasant and cheap food for all the people.
No to the payment of the fraudulent public debt! Out with Wall Street, out with the IMF! Bolsonaro-Maurão-Guedes-Moro, out!
CROJA-FLTI
