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Comment by Orsan Senalp on March 10, 2011 at 11:41

 

ETUC deputy Gen. sec says that they were talking about the idea of Euopean strike, and so far when they sugggested the idea national uions were saying no! But if things get worse more than today, we all will have to change! so European strike getting in the horizon of ETUC, why not global strike would get into the laanguage of international social democratic trade unions. The language hopefully can go further than decent work in such an atmosphere!  

 

One big mobilisation will be taking place at the March 24 Brussels. Without participation of other social movements, their demands, it is difficult to turn the tide. So these demonstratioon will need to open up chain of globalising protests.     

Comment by Orsan Senalp on March 10, 2011 at 9:42

"Euro-Demonstration 9 April 2011

(17 February 2011) The ETUC is organising a European Day of Action on Saturday 9 April 2011 in Budapest. It continues the campaign against the cuts and austerity measures launched with the Eurodemonstration in Brussels on 29 September.

The demonstration is organised as the Council of Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs will be meeting then in Budapest. Hungary holds the Presidency of the EU Council this half year. This Council will consider how well your governments have taken account of the EU priorities especially regarding debt and deficit reduction in the national government budgets. The objectives were laid down in the Annual Growth Survey of the Commission. This is now part of the European semester and part of the ETUC and EPSU campaign on the Economic Governance that the EU proposes.

The EPSU executive committee has stated on several occasions the support for the ETUC campaign. The current policies wage cuts and freezes and job reductions are unfair to working people who are punished for a crisis for which they not were responsible.

EPSU had a prominent presence both at the European action on September 29 and also at the Day of action organised on December 15. Continuing to give a voice to public service workers and our concerns is important and we call upon affiliated unions to participate in the ETUC Day of Action and Euro-demo. Many unions have been involved in strikes and actions. It is important to also give a collective expression to our struggle.

Further details will be forthcoming but this advance warning will assist in your preparation and planning. We will be in contact with colleagues from the countries close by, but we hope to be able to welcome colleagues from all countries in the EPSU block in the demonstration.

For those colleagues which might need accommodation our Hungarian colleagues will be assisting us.

Please advice the EPSU Secretariat before 15 March (return attached participation form) if we can count your union among the participants in Budapest.

And if you can not make it on 9 April, please indicate what you can do in the week preceding the 9th of April. Examples are: distributing leaflets in front of your ministry of Finance on 7 or 8 April, organising a noise action in front of the EU and/ or Hungarian embassy in your country etc. You might have better and more ideas, please let us know.

For practical details contact: Pablo Sanchez, Communications and Campaigns Officer psanchez@epsu.org"

This will or may be a mobilisation with a decent work level demands, but there are good signs of going beyond of that as well. I am at Joint Social Conference held in ITUH bulding in Brussles now and there is some sort of convergance intention between radical democratic movements and social democratic unions. The process can bring about mobilization with wider coverage, I assume. Will try to influence and report on the outcome!

Comment by Carlos Tovar Samanez on March 10, 2011 at 2:42

May 1 is not a working day. So, if sometime we want to call for a strike, that could not be done in May 1.

I know Decent work is not an accurate concept for what we want, but it does not matter. We can use the date and give it another meening, another goal. We can use the date to promote the new Labour Charter and the four hour-day.

But if someone has another date to propose, debate is open. Could be november 11, as Orsan Senalp said.

Thank you Peter

Comment by peter waterman on March 5, 2011 at 21:26

I would welcome a worldwide day for marking, celebrating, discussing such projects. And I would encourage Orsan, Nick Tapin and all others interested in such labour alternatives to respond positively to the invitation of Carlos here.

Given, however, that we have rather different ideas or projects, I would suggest such a day might be called 'Emancipation of Labour Day', or something like this.

I would not think Decent Work Day would be an appropriate one for such emancipatory ideas as we are variously proposing. DW is a project for going back to (an imaginary) labour utopia, such as Sweden 1980. That means a 'social partnership' between a hegemonic capitalism, a servile state and a subordinate labour movement. As with the ILO, in which state and capital represent 75%, labour (actually the 15% of the world's workers in unions), 25%.

If we wanted to attach it to some event, then the obvious one would be May 1, International Workers Day. This is, in some countries a legally-recognised holiday. In others IWDay is celebrated on the Sunday.

We would also need to be in touch with the folks coordinating the Precariat. I am not sure how alive this movement still is. One of its expressions has been the EuroMayday, http://www.euromayday.org/propaganda10/poster_eu.jpg. But I am wondering whether this ltd number of demonstrations actually took place even in Europe, May 1, 2010.

Let's discuss further...

 

 

Comment by Carlos Tovar Samanez on March 4, 2011 at 19:36

I want to ecourage members to discuss which could be the better date to call for a world wide strike/day of direct action. Orsan Senalp is proposing 11th of november. Before that I though the date could be november 7, international day for decent work.

Waiting for other opinions.

Comment by Carlos Tovar Samanez on January 27, 2011 at 19:26

I already linked the Gaia demands to my Facebook group (spanish) Movimiento mundial por la huelga de las 4 horas)http://www.facebook.com/pages/Movimiento-mundial-por-la-huelga-de-l...

Comment by Jorge meneses on January 24, 2011 at 20:21

Hi everyone! We need to promote this!

Comment by Orsan Senalp on January 20, 2011 at 9:17

We have taken up the idea for our experimental new union structure GAIA, and we already started to promote a call for world wide strike/day of direct action on the 11th of November 2011, starting at 11:11am GT, with reference to Marx' 11th theis. 

 

New Transnational Social Network Union to Crack Capitalism and Protect Life, Peace and Justice on Earth

GAIA - Global Alliance for Immediate Alteration

http://openfsm.net/projects/gaia