Argentina - General Mosconi, December 9th, 2000

The 21 points of the Northern Salta picketers

The workers gathered here state the following:

1. Salta is the country. The north of Salta is the country. We are the living example of a country confiscated by a handful of monopolies and bankers, by their political agents and a regime that does not serve the workers. The unemployed today are not the result of an inevitable law, but the result of the capitalist business that has been built on our sacrifice and the sell out of the assets that were made on the basis of our contribution. It should be remembered that Repsol bought YPF for 8,000 million dollars and only in the first stages of the concession it will have 48,000 million dollars of profit. It should be remembered that in the Department of San Martin, Repsol takes 30 million per month, leaving only 1 million, which shows that they are the looters, not the piqueteros. It should be remembered that YPF workers were dismissed massively in order to reduce labor costs for the sake of the benefit and the struggle to survive these octopuses and the sacrifice of every plan of industrialization and exploration. All of YPF's operations have been reduced to send crude oil abroad and the use of profits in the speculative business of large groups. YPF is also the example of the fraudulent purchase of public companies in exchange for the titles of the foreign debt, which was armed with self-loans from economic groups, validated by democracy and never investigated.

2. Those gathered here declare that our claims are our rights. A subsidy to the unemployed is not a gift, it is a right, because it is this regime that is obliged to give us work and, if it does not, it has no reason to be. We do not forget that the employment plans are implemented as a mechanism for lowering the salary of the active worker and, by fighting for them, we do it with the prospect of starting work, achieve full effectiveness and eliminate precarious work.

3. The State has adopted as a policy in the face of popular rebellion the creation of "emergency councils" or "multisectoral councils" or "conciliation tables" in which workers' organizations are subjected to a commitment to representatives of political forces and social issues that are responsible for the catastrophe we are living. We declare, in the face of this attempt, the construction of organizations independent of the State and of any contrary interest to the workers. Accounting a balance of the different experiences of struggle, we have seen how the government has tried to divide the unemployed through the buying off of leaders. The leaders who have betrayed the unemployed must be expelled from the organizations and considered enemies of the workers. It is intended to disorganize us by converting the piqueteros into political operators of the mayors and, many times what has been achieved by the struggle, in the route, is distributed as if it were a favor of the officials who at the time ordered the repression, that this year, have already killed three comrades.

4. Those gathered here declare the constitution of a DEPARTMENTAL COORDINATOR ORGAN OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS OF THE NORTH OF SALTA, made up of the Unemployed Workers 'Union of General Mosconi, the Coordinator of Unemployed Workers of Tartagal, the Unemployed Workers' Coordinator of Salvador Mazza ) And the Neighbourhood Unity Front of Unemployed Workers of Embarcación, based on the following methods:
A) Operation based on assemblies that make the decisions and choose the representatives that must be recallable when the assembly decides.
B) Independent organizations of the provincial and national government, all its agents and employers' organizations.
C) Organize a unique register of unemployed people from each town where the office and the family group and other data are recorded, by the member organizations of the Departmental Coordinator. To impose the recognition of this unique pattern in opposition to the maneuver of arming many lists to encourage division and the handling of the official political operators.
D) The management of the work plans, the positions that are obtained in the private ones, the food bags and everything that is conquered, must be under control of the assemblies so that it is distributed to those who need it more and to those who more Commit themselves to the struggle.
E) From the bottom to the top, we call to organize the coordinator with elected delegates in each district assembly, in which it is contributed to the elaboration of the common list of complaints.
F) Edition of a periodical bulletin of the Coordinator of Workers and Unemployed Persons of the North of Salta, whose first number will be printed with the resolutions of this Congress.

5. Those gathered here declare their willingness to organize and fight in accordance with the following objectives:
A) Control by the Coordinator of the access in the charges to all the companies.
B) Minimum wage of 600 pesos monthly basic for 8 hours of work or 3 pesos an hour, for all activities.
C) Third shift in the oil companies and distribution of working hours without lowering wages.
D) Impose to the nation, the province and all municipalities that the public works have to be constructed by administration and with direct contracting of the comrades by the municipality, eliminating the business of the contractors.
E) Special Hydrocarbon Fund affecting the profits of oil companies at 200 million pesos per year, as a special compensation for environmental, economic and health damages (due to the appearance of diseases such as hantavirus, leishmaniasis, cholera and disasters caused by the modification of the water courses). Triple theroyalties under workers 'control, in the process of renationalisation of YPF under workers' control, without compensation. No to the extension of the concession to the private companies of the deposits of the North. Immediate payment of the YPF shares of the PPP (Participated Property Program) before the end of the year. Plan of industrialization of the petroleum under control of the workers.
F) 10,000 work plans of at least 300 pesos for the San Martin Department or in-mediate subsidy to the unemployed for that amount. Condonation of taxes and municipal and provincial taxes for all the unemployed, subsidized rates of electricity, gas and water. Fuel subsidized throughout the Department San Martin as in the south of the country.
G) Increase of public health and education budgets. Free of high complexity services. Scholarships for all under the control of the educational community. Unbinding of school courses with a maximum of 25 students and without a minimum.
H) Fuel.
I) Reclaiming an immediate 72-hour general strike to trade union centrals as part of a fight plan until repeal of all anti-labor legislation dictated by the IMF (labor reform, attack on retirement and social works, etc.)
J) Ratify the appeal made by the piqueteros in favor of a national congress of organizations and unemployed, to strike all together and at the same time, for our claims. We raised the call for a National Congress of the rank and file, with elected representatives of the entire labor movement.
K) Freedom to Raul Castells and Emilio Ali and cessation of the persecution of the 2,500 popular fighters on trial. Freedom to all the political prisoners. Down with the pardon, Due Obedience and the Final Point laws, so there can be punishment to the murderers of yesterday and today.
L) Down resolution 262 for border areas. It is enough of abuses and persecutions to the comrades who make purchases in the border. Elimination of the interior customs in Aguaray. Let the Senasa chase only those who must. The State must provide free of charge all animal health care to families that have cattle in minimum quantities.
M) Send to jail with a life sentence the killers of Veron, Justinian, Gomez, victims of repression on the road and Maldonado, victim of the trigger happy police. For an independent commission of investigation.
N) Distribution of unworked state lands among the workers and unemployed in the Department of San Martin (5 to 10 hectares) for agricultural development financed by the State.
O) Out with the interventions and the governments, front men of the regime of sellout and looting. Sovereignty of workers' organizations and construction of a People's Assembly representing the interests of workers.

6. We declared May 13 "Piquetero Day" by the great people who resisted and defeated the repression.

7. Based on these claims and these objectives, the Congress resolves a plan of action, the election of a responsible address and the convening of a second Congress within 60 days. Action plan a demonstration for the clarification and trial and punishment of the murderers of fallen comrades is scheduled for Thursday, December 14, at 20:00, simultaneously in Mosconi, Tartagal, Embarcacion, Salvador Mazza. A day of mobilization is called for 22 December, with the purpose of presenting the list of complaints. The plenary is voted by the class union of leaders, interns, delegates and groups that have backed the call to a National Congress of Unemployed. An address is made up of two representatives for each unemployed organization of the towns present, the UTA representative and the relatives of the fallen comrades.

With the exception of that referred to the Day of the Piquetero, all the resolutions were voted by unanimity. In General Mosconi, on 9 December 2000