Argentina - April 4th, 2018

Letter from the workers of the group Avanzada Obrera, Lista Negra (Workers’ Advanced – Black Slate) of the Rio Santiago Shipyard in solidarity with the striking workers of Arcelor Mittal (South Africa)

From Avanzada Obrera, Lista Negra (Workers’ Advanced – Black Slate) of the Rio Santiago Shipyard, Argentina, we send you our full solidarity and a militant hug.

Your demands are part of the Argentinian working class, as well as of the whole world working class’s.

International monopolies, imperialism along with national governments and bosses are coming to impose labour flexibility and outsourcing. What proves this are the struggles carrying out all over the world, such as the Iranian metalworkers, thousands of Chinese workers' struggles, strikes in Bangladesh, and the enormous struggle against the labour flexibilization by French workers wearing Yellows Vests, fighting against the betrayal of the unions as well.

One struggle, one class.

Comrades, you must know that your fight is our fight. We have taken to the streets too, facing the Macri’s government which is trying to close our shipyard and dismiss more than 3,000 workers kicking us out.
Bosses on both sides of the Atlantic must know that the banners of Workers' Internationalism make ArcelorMittal's struggle the same the comrades of the Iranian metallurgist’s, the textile workers of Bangladesh’s, the Chinese metallurgists’ and the Yellow Vests’. Our struggle is the same struggle. The Algerian workers rise in Paris against precarious work and the slavery of the government of the Fifth Republic and the bosses.
The workers who fight all over the world are attacked by the justice and the police. The state imprisons and persecutes us; they murder or disappear us, as it happens with the factory leader Ismail Bakhshi arrested and tortured for fighting to organize union rights in the metallurgical Hact- Tapper Sugarcane.
The Chinese workers at the Jassic Technology, an equipment factory, were fired for self-organizing and then they were arrested, along with students and supporters. Even today, the arrests of labour rights defenders continue.
In every struggle in the streets and factories in Argentina, we face the same the political persecution from trade unions, together with repression and imprisonment or assassinations by the state, like Rafael Nahuel and Santiago Maldonado.

That is why we fight so that your fight triumphs!!

For the freedom of comrades imprisoned all over the world!
Stop persecuting fighters!
Against union political persecution!
Let's join our fight!!

ONE CLASS, ONE FIGHT.