Dear comrades,
Brothers and sisters,
On behalf of the leadership of the WFTU I transmit to you and through you to the workers of agroalimentary chain all over the world, class and militant greetings. Moreover I would particularly like to thank our hosters, the National Union of Food Industry Workers of Senegal for there hospitality and there care to provide the appropriate conditions for a successful congress.
Your congress is taking place in a period that the nature of imperialism is once again revealed in all its hypocrisy, cynicism, and inhumanity. The massacre and genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza continue unabated and this heinous crime is being shamefully attempted to be presented as Israel’s right of self-defense.
Right of self-defense for a state that for decades has illegally occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories, that has uprooted and displaced millions of people out of their homes and land, that denies the Palestinians the right to have their own independent state and continues the settlements, murders, and arrests, establishing in practice an Apartheid regime.
WFTU from the very first moment, stood by the Palestinian people and highlighted the real cause of instability, violence, and unrest in Palestine, which is none other than the Israeli occupation and settlements, the usurpation of the rights of the Palestinian people that has been going on for decades.
We are proud that millions of workers in tens of countries around the world are mobilizing, with the WFTU flags, in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Within the International Trade Union Movement, not everyone can feel proud. Some have lost their voice and remain silent in the face of this crime. They insist on an equal distance stance and their ‘yes, but’ positions, equating the perpetrators with the victims.
WFTU demand justice and freedom for Palestine, immediate ceasefire, and the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
For WFTU which born in the ashes of world war the struggle for peace is inherent and integrated with the broader struggles of the labor movement for a better world. It is obvious that the world peace is threatened. Not for human rights, as some would prefer us to believe, but for imperialist geopolitical and economic interests.
We demand an end to NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine which they maintain by all means, and to replace weapons with diplomacy. For us the struggle for peace has a specific content. It means first and foremost a struggle for the dismantling of NATO and all military coalitions, a struggle to defend the right of every people to choose the path of their economic and social development without interventions, sanctions, blockades, and economic wars. Against the double-standards policy where international law ends up being in practice the law of the strong.
Dear comrades, brothers and sisters
We live in a period that the crisis of capitalism is generalized and deepens. Social inequalities are widening dramatically and democratic and trade union freedoms are under a harsh new attack.
The high cost of living and inflation are brutally undermining workers’ and pensioners living standards. Τhe right to organize and collective bargaining and the holy right to strike are under attack.
Individual contracts, privatizations, outsourcing, teleworking and “service leasing” are just some of the forms taken by this harsh neoliberal attack.
Major social achievements such as social security and public health care are being privatized while the authoritarian and arbitrary increase of the retirement age methodically continues.
In the sectors covered by your Trade Union International, the problems of the workers are certainly no different in substance from those in any other sector. The systemic crisis is manifesting itself, not only as an economic crisis, but also as a food and environmental crisis.
The harsh realities experienced by those who earn their livelihood working in the agri-food sector, are far from approaching the otherwise nice-sounding slogans of the sustainable development and the social and justice green transition.
The intensification of imperialist aggression, interventions and military conflicts are leading agricultural resources to destruction and large parts of the sector to collapse.
The increasing penetration of multinational monopoly capital into agricultural holdings and the food chain in general, is leading to the plundering of natural wealth and an unprecedented attack on workers’ labour, social and trade union rights.
By the ruling circles of the system and the huge business groups, unfortunately, the primary priority remains their unbridled speculation and the control of the global agro-industrial chain.
Economic, technological and productive inequalities, instead of being reduced, on the altar of profit are constantly widening, with the result that vast areas of the world with populations of billions of people remain fortuned to poverty and underdevelopment.
The results of monopolistic penetration and exploitation of agricultural and food production are increasingly felt not only by the workers in the sectors, but also by small and medium-sized farmers who see their incomes reduced and their efforts destroyed.
The outpouring of their anger is evident in the huge farmers’ mobilisations that we have witnessed in recent years, not only in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but also within Europe as well.
We stand in solidarity with these struggles.
It is obvious that the burden of the capitalist crisis, is being attempted once again to be put on the shoulders of the working people and the weak popular strata in general.
The workers and poor farmers do not passively accept the neoliberal, anti-grassroots, and anti-worker attacks. They refusing to pay the bill of the capitalist crisis.
With militant mobilizations in all corners of the globe, they demand the satisfaction of their contemporary needs. They demand agreement-regulated, permanent, and stable work. Safety and health at work, social security, reliable public health systems, full, free and universal education, and the right to leisure, culture, and intellectual development.
The sharpening of state repression and authoritarianism is the response of the bourgeois governments to the just popular demands; unfortunately, very often under the cooperation or tolerance of surrendered trade union leaders along with yellow unions.
For the WFTU is clear that only through struggles the workers can build a militant front able of defending their rights, principles, and values, and pave the way for another course that leads to peace, social justice, and the abolition of man-by-man exploitation.
Dear Comrades,
Just few weeks ago the Presidential Council of WFTU had its annual meeting in Sao Paolo where estimated our action and collectively decided about our plan for the next year.
In 2023 we had implemented a rich action plan after a fairly long period of mandatory restrictions on our activities due to the COVID pandemic.
Our ambition for the 2024 action, is to be even rich and more multilayered.
There is no doubt that TUI’s action must remain at the center of our attention. Through this action we come closer to the contemporary needs and daily struggles of the workers in the sectors they work in. Closer to the demands for work regulated by collective agreements and for guaranteed labor rights and trade union freedoms.
An ambitious Action Plan for the next years I am sure that will adopted from this congress that it will be rich and diverse to develop the coordination and guidance of the struggles, the expression of solidarity and internationalism, the dissemination of information, the intervention in international organizations the continuous upgrading of the educational work within the workers and of course the organizational development and the expansion of the prestige and influence of the International class oriented movement.
On behalf of more than 105 million members from 133 countries in all corners of the world, I wish every success in the work of your congress and in your future struggles.
Be certain that you will never be alone in your struggles. You can always rely on the solidarity and support of the WFTU.
The system that generates crisis and reproduces exploitation can be defeated. The weapon of the working class is Solidarity and Internationalism.
For the class-oriented International Trade Union movement, for the workers who resist, who do not compromise with oppression, discrimination and exploitation, there is only one path of dignity: the path of the struggles.
Long Live the Trade Union Class Struggle!
Long Live solidarity and internationalism!
