Just as these organisations have nothing to do with the working class
Editor’s Note: This brilliant takedown of the ITUC-ETUC comes to us from the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) in Greece.
For those who are falling from the clouds with the arrest of the General Secretary of the ITUC and (until hours before the arrest)also General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation-ETUC, we remind you that these organisations are not trade unions, but were created, financed and operate with the aim of controlling the international trade union movement for the monopolies and imperialist organisations.
ITUC-ETUC have excellent relations with the European Union, NATO, IMF, World Bank, governments such as the USA, Israel, etc.
The openly proclaimed, reason for the existence of the ETUC is “… The trade union movement has the responsibility to defend democracy and the European social model, the most important achievement of the last century” (p. 2, ETUC Declaration, 2019-2023). And how could it not be since the budget of the European Trade Union Confederation is 75% financed by the European Union itself.
These same organisations fund openly trade unions and trade unionists to support the interests of imperialist organisations and monopolies. They organise activities of European and American trade unions in … Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In general, wherever the EU, the USA are interested, where missionaries used to go, nowadays they are going with ITUC-ETUC trade unionists.
Trade unionists, who in their own countries had never done half a day of strike, were running with suitcases full of (I wonder what with) to “civilize” the trade unions of developing countries. Qatar is an exception, it seems, only in that this time the suitcases were going in the opposite direction. The scandal for the EU is that instead of the EU buying off unions, another country bought off one of its own children.
For those who will run to say that these were mistakes of an old leadership, at the ITUC Congress in November 2022, in the midst of an imperialist war, the ITUC welcomed the butcher US President Biden who thanked the ITUC again and again for its contribution. A week later Biden banned the US railworkers’ strike and the newly appointed ITUC General Secretary was arrested for corruption.
This at a time when class union leaders around the world, cadres of the WFTU in Colombia, Ecuador, Palestine, Turkey, France, Italy, Greece, Sri Lanka, and around the world are being prosecuted for their struggles and action in defense of the working class. (See in Greece the President of OENGE, the General. Secretary of the Federation of Builders, President of the Commerce Employees of Thessaloniki, etc.). Persecutions to which the working class responds with the greatest possible militant solidarity, a sign of the relationship between the real working-class leaders and the working class itself.
On the contrary, 4 days after the arrest of their General Secretary, the official position of ITUC-ETUC is “NO COMMENT”.
Workers’ struggles have nothing to do with the dirt and filth of the ITUC-ETUC, just as these organizations have nothing to do with the working class
Against the aims of them and their bosses, workers all over the world, young, women, migrants, are getting back in touch with the unions. They are mobilising, struggling, striking and demanding.
The working class has the values of solidarity, of selfless service, of internationalism, of the unceasing conflict between the working class and the capitalist class. In conflict with the crimes of imperialism in Qatar, in Palestine, in Ukraine, in our own country.
Guided by these values, we march, we meet with militant unions in other countries, we coordinate our action. We strengthen the struggle for a society without exploitation, poverty and wars.
