Dear comrades, brothers and sisters,
On behalf of more than 105 million members of the World Federation of Trade Unions from 133 countries from all corners of the earth, I convey to you and through you to the pensioners of the Arab world, militant class greeting.
WFTU is proud to have TUI Pensioners in its ranks, which rally and brings together the class and militant organizations of pensioners from all corners of the globe and which is constantly mobilized and demanding. This is our duty. To put pressure on them. To demand. To fight. Because our veterans who are retired from work, have pricelessly contributed to society and certainly deserve much more than what they currently enjoy.
Yours meeting take place in a period that the crisis of capitalism it deepens and attempted to be loaded to the shoulders of the working class by the open violation of democratic and trade union rights and the dramatic widening of social inequalities, poverty, and exploitation.
The sharp and uncontrollable increase in prices of all basic necessities, dissipates the living standard of the working people and pensioners families at the same time that multinationals and monopolies are reaching new records in profits.
The workers and the pensioners all over the world they refuse to pay for the capitalist crisis and the imperialist wars. Through remarkable struggles, strikes and mobilizations, they are fighting for the satisfaction of their contemporary needs, to defend the democratic and trade union freedoms, the collective bargaining and the stable, permanent, and agreements-regulated labor. For an end to imperialist wars and interventions, for an immediate and to the war in Ukraine, the dissolution of NATO and all military coalitions and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Αn end to the imperialist blockades, sanctions and economic wars.
WFTU affiliates all over the world are at the forefront of these struggles.
The sharpening of state repression and authoritarianism, is the response of the bourgeois governments to the just popular demands. Unfortunately, with the tolerance of surrendered trade union leaders and the cooperation of yellow unions.
The arrest of the Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Luca Visentini for a bribe scandal, confirms once again, that the absence of a substantial reaction to the neoliberal, anti-labor policies coexists with the corruption and the use of Trade Union positions for opposite purposes to the class interests of the working class. WFTU call the Trade Unions all over the world to protect their autonomy and their class orientation, away from bureaucracy, corruption, and manipulation by the capital and employers.
Dear comrades, brothers and sisters
The capitalists and their political representatives take advantage of the crisis and promote the privatization of even the greatest social achievements such as social security. With public money, they save banks and strengthen big capital, not caring at the same time about the dramatic expansion of poverty and social inequality. Ignoring that large groups of the population, especially the most vulnerable, such as Pensioners, are pushed even further into misery, abandonment, and social marginalization.
The weapon of the working class is Solidarity and internationalism. For those who resist, who do not compromise with oppression, discrimination and man by man exploitation, there is only one path of dignity, the path of the struggles.
The WFTU, the International Class-oriented Trade Union Movement firmly stands by your side and fights with you in the great trade union battle for pensions. Against the privatization of social security and the arbitrary and autocratic increase of retirement limits. For pensioners’ right to a dignified life, housing, food, health, culture, and entertainment with a proper level of quality.
Dear comrades, brothers and sisters
Workers and retirees march together, shoulder to shoulder in the struggles for a better world without imperialist wars and interventions, without social marginalization, without discrimination of any kind, and without exploitation of man and man.
I would like to wish you every success in the works of your meeting and to your struggles to defend and expand the rights and improve the quality of life of pensioners in the Arab countries and all over the world.
Be sure that you can always rely on the solidarity and the support of the international class-oriented trade union movement.
- Long live the workers and pensioners unity and struggles
- Long live TUI Pensioners and WFTU