Argentina - June 9th, 2017

Paralyzing four days the transport service of the whole province; with the method of assembly, convincing pickets and mobilizations... UTA (Transport Trade Union) workers of Córdoba reject the collective bargaining signed by Fernandez bureaucracy and they confront the retrenchment of hunger and maquila in Argentina launched by the bosses and the government...

WE ARE ALL UTA-CÓRDOBA WORKERS

To defeat the attack of Macri’s government, Schiaretti’s, all the governors, bosses' parties and imperialism...

THE STRUGGLE OF UTA-CORDOBA WORKERS MUTS GENERALIZED
TO ALL ACROSS ARGENTINA!

They are retaking the path of March 7th when rank and file workers rebelled against the union bureaucracy and its truce with the government

Discharge the hunger collective bargaining of the government, bosses and bureaucracy!

Down with the union bureaucracy!
That sells our conquests out and divides the struggles

In the struggle of the workers of the UTA-Cordoba is at stake the salary, the jobs and the immediate future of the whole working class ... Their struggle must triumph!
DELEGATES FROM ALL THE WORKER MOVEMENT TO CÓRDOBA!

 

From the combative worker organizations and those who are resisting the government's attack, such as the SUTNA (tire union), oil workers, Line 60 (bus drivers), the opponents SUTEBAS (teachers’ union), AGR-Clarin, Canale, Cresta Roja, the Patagonian oil workers, Tenaris-Siat , etc ... Let´s send delegates to Córdoba to set up a

NATIONAL FRONT OF STRUGGLE
Down with the electoral trap!
STRUGGLE PLAN AND GENERAL STRIKE!

Minimum wage, vital and mobile equal to the family basket! Unique National collective bargaining! 47% salary increase for all workers! No layoffs!
Self-defense committees of worker organizations to confront the state repression and the attacks of the union bureaucracy thugs!

Free the five comrades detained for fighting in Cordoba!
Free Milagro Sala and all political prisoners! Acquittal of the workers of Las Heras and Tierra del Fuego! Drop all charges to the over 7,000 workers and popular fighters!

A few days after the anniversary of the "Cordobazo", the province that carried out one of the most heroic acts of the Argentinean working class becomes once again the center of the ring of the fight against the bosses, the government and mainly against the traitors of the union bureaucracy.
UTA workers have been struggling for a week. For five days there was a full transport service strike, with pickets and mobilizations. Paying homage to the best traditions of the Cordobazo classism, the method of assembly and workers' democracy are the bases and force of the current struggle of the UTA workers -where the working woman is once again avant-garde- and they have now aroused the sympathy of most sectors of the workers of the province and of the whole working class of the country. Not surprisingly, their struggle questions the retrenchment plans of hunger and labor flexibilization carried out by Macri’s government, the governors and all the bosses' parties at the service of imperialist transnationals and Wall Street. UTA workers rebelled against the collective bargains of hunger of the union bureaucracy! They show the way for the whole working movement!

While the bosses' parties were already entering into the electoral farce with their campaign of promises and with the collaboration of the trade union bureaucracy, UTA-Cordoba workers took up the fight on March 7, of the rebellion of the rank and file working-class that kicked out of the stage CGT’s leaders and their truce with the government. The public transport workers of Cordoba put back in the first point of the agenda the conditions for the working class to regroup their forces and based on their fight reopen the road to the general strike to defeat the government’s and the capitalists’ assault.
The struggle of the transport workers in Cordoba shows that the working class is not willing to pay capitalists’ and government’s party. They have showed the whole working movement, who are responsible for the super-exploitation and hunger wages: the union bureaucracy.
It all started with the news that Fernandez bureaucracy agreed to a fake 21% wage increase -on comfortable pre-fixed payments- in the national collective bargains. That means a measly increase of 8% of salary for this year while inflation already exceeds 30%; and in the mean time transport bosses kneads super-profits and receives state millionaire subsidies. Immediately there was widespread anger among all workers, who have been supporting the intervention of their union by the central bureaucracy of the UTA that does not recognize workers’ decision of freely choosing their delegates.

On the fifth day of the transport shutdown, which has kept the entire province semi-paralyzed, UTA workers' struggle became a struggle for the entire working movement. While the bosses' parties like PJ, UCR - PRO, FPV and their hired thugs from the trade union bureaucracy want to get into the electoral circus, the workers of UTA Córdoba show the way for the whole working class.

Scab CGT bureaucrats who started a “Sunday” strike to decompress workers anger at the early April are now more concerned about intervening in the internal elections of the PJ than on the salary of the workers, which they are selling out once again. Everybody tries to get the workers into the electoral trap supporting some bosses project. They want us accept the misery of the collective bargains of hunger and just think of the ballot boxes and votes. But the truth is that the only concern of the workers today is to be able to live a whole month with our salary and get the food for our families. And we know that our welfare is not in votes and in the agenda of parliament which is Wall Street’s notary. There, all the bosses’ parties like PRO, FpV, Frente Renovador, PJ, etc., only discuss their businesses, they vote the laws that bosses dictate and they fill their pockets as they had just  do, increasing their Parliamentarians expenses.
The heroic workers of UTA Córdoba, remain firm in their struggle against the bargaining of hunger. The rank and file workers resist everything that the government, the bureaucracy and the businessmen have used to break this heroic fight. Neither compulsory conciliation, nor intimidation, nor dismissals, nor declaration of illegality of the strike, nor detainees, nor "militarization" of the heads of lines guarded by the police, nor the ignorance of the measure by the bureaucracy of the head office of UTA of Fernández, have been able to undermine the rank and file struggle. As an example of it on Wednesday the government and the bosses did not even manage to get out the 20 buses of the company Coniferal that on Tuesday circulated guarded by the police.
The government and the bosses have concentrated all their forces and institutions to break the strike. They know very well that they cannot go back. The hunger collective bargains that they have been imposing are part of a state policy on account of the imperialist transnationals who need miserable wages and an outsourced labor force so that the working class produces in maquila conditions to keep their profits. All this in the middle of a crisis which does not give peace and which hit the Mercosur with the bankruptcy of Brazil, Argentina's main trading partner. Their fortune depends on preventing the triumph of the UTA-Córdoba workers and that their fight does not generalize to the whole labor movement.

Until now the provocations of Major Mestre, the governor Schiaretti, the bureaucracy of Fernandez and the intimidation of the bosses with dismissal telegrams and the repressive forces that are lurking to repress the workers have not been enough. That is why the national labor ministry had to intervene and try to get workers out of the street and the struggle, through the negotiating meetings. No confidence in Triaca and the labor ministry, which is nothing but the human resources office of the bosses to impose their anti-worker plans!
On Wednesday night, thanks to the strength and determination of the heroic workers of UTA, a large column of Luz y Fuerza (electric workers’ union) showed up at the doors of the UTA office to support the drivers’ struggle. It is because the strength and determination of the women worker, with their combative men and women delegates at the head, have aroused the admiration of workers of Cordoba. They have resisted firmly the infamies of the media of Cordoba that since last Friday onwards have not stopped launching an infamous campaign to overturn to the town of Cordoba against the workers of UTA.
Statements are coming from other unions of Cordoba like local public servants, Garbage collectors (SURBAC), Taxi drivers, etc. There is a great sympathy among the UOM (metal, TN) workers who last Friday rejected their collective bargain, among the teachers who support miserable collective bargain negotiation. The tire workers in the south of the city are struggling...

It is time to conquer a single list of demands, to impose the provincial strike to give a hard blow not only to the anti-worker government of Mestre and Schiaretti, but as a great step to defeat the attack of the whole employers and government and bosses' parties. It becomes urgent to concentrate and unify the ranks of the working class in Cordoba together with the workers of UTA to end the hunger collective bargain of the union bureaucracy, rates, unemployment and repression of the workers in struggle. It is urgent to transform the enormous solidarity in effective coordination of struggle to impose the provincial unemployment even until all the demands are fulfilled!

In order to take the struggle of UTA-Córdoba workers to succeed, it is necessary to generalize their struggle to the entire labor movement and to transform their camp into a point of regrouping of all sectors that have been resisting the attack of the capitalists. They mark the way to end the plans of imperialist transnationals. Rank and file assembly to reject the hunger collective bargains as the comrades did.
We must stop the repressive attack of the government and also defend ourselves against the thugs paid by the union bureaucracy to attack our struggles. They are the murderers of Mariano Ferreyra! They were part of the AAA! Self-defense committees to defend ourselves against the thugs and gunmen of the trade union bureaucracy!
UTA-Córdoba workers' camp must become a great "March 7th stage" to sweep away the union bureaucracy that sells out our conquests and our salaries. The militant workers' organizations must send delegates with a rank and file mandate to set up a National Struggle Front and strike the government with a single fist, conquering the general strike.

Militant unionism sent leaders of Suteba-La Matanza, subway and railway workers to support the strike of UTA workers. It is a major step forward! And this step allows organizing the national strike against the peers of hunger, from the unions and sectionals leading by the militant unionism. From Cordoba we can organize this fight! We cannot continue the struggle workplace by workplace or union by union because the attack is the same. We must follow the example of the comrades of the UTA-Cordoba and call rank and file assemblies in the Sutebas, subway, railway, tire and food workers, the rebel factories of the UOM, to coordinate us and to ignore the collective bargains and the treacherous trade union bureaucracy. There is no other path than unity and struggle to confront the Macri’s and the governors’ attack. That is why we insist: We must set up a National Struggle Front! So that the workers of UTA-Cordoba and all the sectors in struggle succeed.

SUTNA, which began its plan to fight for collective bargains, oil workers, the militant SUTEBAS that group teachers who continue fighting for the national collective bargain, Sitrepba -which is also in struggle for collective bargains-, Cresta Roja workers who are still fighting for the fulfillment of their demands, metal workers such as Tenaris-Siat comrades who suffer layoffs and suspensions, and the Siderca Ensenada delegates expelled from the union by the Caló bureaucracy, Line 60 workers who have been resisting attempts at dismissals from DOTA employers, the self-organizaed drivers of the UTA that were mobilized in Capital Federal in support to the workers of UTA Córdoba and against the collective bargains signed by Fernandez, the workers of AGR, the oil workers of the Patagonia that suffer thousands of layoffs, and all the sectors that resist the attack and persecution of the government and bosses, they all must send delegates to Cordoba to make reality this National Struggle Front and conquer the conditions to impose the general strike to defeat the attack of the capitalists.

In the midst of the attack by the government and the capitalists, FIT (Left Front) is discussing its candidacies and electoral lists for the Primaries. If it really serves the working class, it is time to make available all the resources of the electoral tribune at the disposal of the struggle of the UTA-Córdoba workers and of a National Struggle Front to conquer a regrouping of the workers to conquer a plan of struggle and the general strike to conquer all our demands.

Once again the workers from Cordoba put themselves at the forefront of the whole labor movement. They show the way, they and the exploited of Brazil who are leading a huge mass struggle in the streets against the same transnationals, the same slave-owning employers and politicians, agents of Wall Street. Open the road to the fighting people!

THE ONES ON TOP DESERVE A NEW CORDOBAZO!
6 HOUR WORKING DAY FOR EVERYONE! WORK FOR EVERYBODY! STATIZATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION AND UNDER WORKER CONTROL OF THE NATIONAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM!
IN ORDER TO EAT, HAVE WORK AND A DECENT LIFE WE HAVE TO RETAKE THE WAY OF 2001!

OUT WITH IMPERIALISM! NO TO FOREIGN DEBT PAYMENT!
HOW THE WORKERS OF THE UTA SAY: "EVERYBODY OUT, NOBODY LEFT"

Editorial Board of paper Democracia Obrera