(en) Anarkismo.net: Statement by the Mediterranean Union Coordination by Equipo de Trabajo para el Norte de ?frica - CGT (ca)

Union organizations from Africa, America, Asia and Europe meet in Paris ---- The 
Confederaci?n General del Trabajo (Spain), the Union Syndicale Solidaires (France) and the 
Central Sindical e Popular Conlutas (Brazil) have extended an international invitation to 
all organizations that consider themselves part of the combative trade union movement and 
see the need for social transformation to an international trade union meeting to be held 
in Paris from 22 to 24 March in order to work towards the coordination of alternative 
trade-unionism on an international level. ---- The convening organizations believe that 
the crisis of the capitalist system has consequences across the globe. The economic, 
financial, environmental and social crises are mixed and mutually reinforce each other. 
This global capitalist crisis shows the impasse of a form of development based on the 
increasingly unequal distribution of the wealth produced, on financial deregulation, on 
widespread free trade and on disregard for ecological imperatives.

To save the profits of shareholders and bosses and to ensure the future of the banks, 
global institutions (the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade 
Organization, etc.), governments and employers are attacking the rights of workers with 
increasing force.

The type of trade-unionism that our organizations support have an impact because it does 
not endorse pacts with the powers that be which only validate anti-social measures. The 
trade-union organizations have a responsibility to organize the resistance on an 
international level in order to build, in the struggles, the necessary social 
transformation of society. To build a system based on the commons, on the re-distribution 
of wealth among all who contribute to its creation, on the rights of working people and on 
ecologically sustainable development.

The international meeting has set the following objectives:

To implement, over time, union solidarity actions focused on one or two countries.

To participate in a unified and coordinated manner in order to support existing 
international struggles and campaigns: support for the Palestinian people, recognition of 
independent trade unionism in North Africa and the Middle East, against the military 
occupation of Haiti, against the European treaties that impose austerity, for the right of 
all peoples to decide their future, etc.

To strengthen and expand international work in the various labour sectors (transportation, 
education, call centres, industry, commerce, healthcare, etc.) and inter-professional 
issues (women's rights, immigration, housing, ecology, health and work, etc.).

Decide together the materials necessary for the success of our joint projects.
The organizers declare that by holding this meeting they do not intend to declare the 
establishment of a new international organization. Rather, it seeks to strengthen, expand 
and streamline a network of combative, democratic, independent, alternative and 
internationalist trade-unionism.
Confederal Press Office of the CGT

---------------------------

Statement

We previously mentioned the meeting of the Mediterranean Union Coordination which took 
place in Tangier on 23 February 2013, with the participation of the Moroccan National 
Federation of Workers and Officials of Local Collectives (FNFOCL-UMT), National Federation 
of Education Workers (FNE-UMT) and National Federation of Agricultural Workers (FNSA-UMT), 
the Spanish CGT, the French CNT, the Association of Unemployed Graduates of Morocco 
(ANDCM) and the Union of Unemployed Graduates of Tunisia (UDC). Solidaires (France), the 
Algerian unions SNAPAP (National union of public service personnel) and CLA (Council of 
High-School Students of Algeria) and USI (Italy) sent messages apologizing for their absence.

Here is the text of the final statement issued by the meeting.

Statement from the meeting of the Mediterranean Union Coordination

Tangier, 23 February 2013

The network of Mediterranean trade unions meeting in Tangier on 23 February 2013, takes 
note of the fact that the capitalist crisis is being used everywhere as a pretext to carry 
out wild dismissals in every country, for violent repression of the trade union and social 
movement and for the privatization of public services. With the exploitation of the 
working class continuing to increase throughout the world, we can only reaffirm the need 
to better coordinate the anti-capitalist social forces who are struggling at this time on 
all fronts.
The combative unions in Morocco continue the struggle against repression by the powers, 
together with all those who can work within certain trade union organizations to counter 
the government attack on the social and economic gains and rights of the working class. In 
this situation, the Coordination asks for support for the national strike and 
demonstration called for the 28 February by the combative trade union movement in Morocco.

Elsewhere, students, workers and unemployed workers are having to suffer the misery of 
prison for having participated in demonstrations. All demonstrations and protests in 
general are violently repressed. One student from Fez fell victim to this repression, 
murdered by the security forces on 26 January. Trials are held without any guarantee of 
fairness. The examples of the Sahrawi of Azikim Igdz, students and youth of the 20 
February Movement, are a clear illustration.

The Coordination confirms its support for the 20 February Movement which enters its third 
year of struggle, fighting for a national policy of democratic opening and for dignity and 
social justice for the Moroccan people.

In Tunisia, we are witnessing an increase in attacks on trade unionists and activists in 
the social movements which have culminated in the murder of the militant Choukri Bela?d, 
an act which the Coordination strongly condemns. The members of the network reaffirm their 
solidarity with the Tunisian people who are struggling in order to achieve the objectives 
of their revolution. We also bring our solidarity to the militants of the UDCT (Union of 
Unemployed Tunisian Graduates) who carry on a harsh struggle to organize themselves 
against poverty and unemployment.

The network strongly condemns the improper expulsion and inhuman treatment reserved for 
militants of the unemployed workers' organizations in Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania by 
the Algerian regime, who were invited by the SNAPAP to a preparatory meeting for the 
creation of the North African Union of Unemployed Workers.

In Europe, the situation in Spain, Italy and Greece demonstrates all the violence that can 
be ranged by the capitalist system in order to provide for itself at thecost of the 
workers. The struggles of the working class in Europe show the desire not to remain 
passive and to build an adequate response.


Translation by FdCA - International Relations Office.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/25193
Related Link: http://www.cgt.es