Chubut, Argentina - September 2019

Over a month of enormous political struggle of the workers against Macri's Government, the Peronist Governor Arcioni and the imperialist oil companies.
For the wages owed and the paralyzed social works, the routes are blocked, the schools are occupied and the workers have taken to the streets.
With the pickets of the strikers and grassroots assemblies ripped out of the hands of Avila's' bureaucracy, the oil workers rebelled and join the fight.

 

Let the spark of Chubut set Argentina on fire!
Open the road to the “chubutazo”
May capitalist pay the crisis!

Everybody out!

GENERAL STRIKE!

The province of Chubut, Argentina, is going through a huge independent mass action that threatens at every step to demolish the citadel of power and it has left Arcioni's Government in an open crisis, on the edge of being defeated by the exploited’s actions.
Teachers and state workers in the province, fighting for owed days, to recover their medical insurance and in defence of public health and education, have kept the exploiters on tenterhooks for more than a month.
The pickets of workers in struggle have dragged oil workers into combat. The rank and file oil workers refused to go to the oil wells, against the scab bureaucracy of Ávila (leader of Rank and File Oil Workers' Union) and Lludgar (leader of Hierarchical Union). This oil workers’ strike set up the "Chubutazo". The workers who make the oil wells work -one of the greatest wealth of Argentina, looted by all the oil companies- went on strike.
While the governors of the oil provinces negotiate their  businesses of the oil income with Macri, Fernandez-Fernandez and the judges, the workers in struggle of Chubut look for the money extracted there with workers’ sacrifice, to reopen the schools, and to make the hospitals and all public institutions work.

The general strike of the workers, who are the ones that make the province work, ask themselves who really makes Chubut province work: whether Arcioni's Government -supported by the "anti-worker" Macri, the big oil companies like Pan American, Tecpetrol (Group Techint) and YPF and the traitors of union bureaucracy- or the workers and the poor people.


Arcioni's Government, the bosses' politicians, the Trade Union bureaucracies and the repressive State, all under the Transnational Organizations Board of Director’s, lost control of the working class and the exploited masses rebelled in the province.

For more than 30 days, the leaders of national unions, such as CTERA, ATE and the others have been giving a truce and social peace to Macri's Government in bankruptcy; they left this enormous struggle isolated, when the demands of Chubut workers are the same demands of all the Argentinean working class.

The trade union bureaucracy of Arcioni, the oil companies, Macri and Fernández sought to break, with shots and repression, the heroic struggle of the Chubut workers

The national isolation of the combat in Chubut due to the betrayal of the union bureaucracy, allowed the bourgeoisie, the Oil Companies Board of Director’s, Arcioni's Government (Fernández's partner), supervised by Bullrich and Macri, started to prepare and organize a blow and a punishment to the teachers and state workers, the vanguard of the struggle in the province. They had to attack the heart of the struggle that gathered oil workers with the rest of the workers in struggle.

Before this, Ávila and Lludgar’s bureaucracies, together with the Labour Ministry, imposed a mandatory conciliation to prevent oil workers from going on strike on August 28th and 29th together with teachers and state workers, as the rank and file workers had voted in the Assembly. But they failed. In the picket of Route 3 and 26 and 3 and 39 of Comodoro Rivadavia, the buses and trucks of the oil workers who fraternized with the workers in struggle stopped and refused to go to the oil wells. They stayed with the teachers who educate their children.

Considering this, the Government prepared an exemplary action to crush the picket of 3 and 26, the heart of the "Chubutazo". That picket was shot and attacked with sticks today in the early morning by a gang of the corrupt union bureaucrats of Ávila and Lludgar, paid by the oil companies, while the police liberated the area.
This is the bureaucracy that sold out the oil collective agreements in 2016 and permitted Daniel Ruiz, a former oil shop steward fired and imprisoned for fighting against the Pension Reform on December 18, 2017, continues being hostage of the Oil Companies and the Government for over a year.

An enormous response from the working class and the people of Chubut against the attack of the gunmen of the bureaucracy, the Government, their police and the CEOs of the oil companies

More than fifty thousand workers among teachers, public servants, lorry drivers, UOCRA (builders), unemployed, secondary and University students and thousands rank and file oil workers have been mobilized today, 4/9, in Comodoro from workers' and popular neighborhoods. The workers and the poor people took to the streets throughout the province. "Arcioni, get out" is painted in every street of Chubut.
Tomorrow, 5/9, the entire province will be paralyzed in an active strike that really started today when the first teacher was hit in the picket of Route 3 and 26.
Today the masses marched against the eviction of the picket with shots; thousands in the streets are discussing the way of reorganizing its forces to regain the control of the routes. The question is whether they -the imperialist oil companies, their government and their capitalist partners- do it; or we -the workers conquering work and wages- do it by making capitalists and the enemies of the people to pay the crisis.
The Chubutazo rises up and now the trade union leaders of the "social pact", supporters of the Government and the sixty-dollar peso of Macri and Fernández, cannot turn the blind eye. Hatred against gunmen bureaucracy is running throughout the entire country. They, like the shameless bureaucrats of the CGT and many of the CTA, are despised by the Argentinean working class. They are who oppress the labor movement to guarantee the profits for the capitalists.
CTERA had to call for a strike for tomorrow, 5/9, imposed by the grassroots teachers; ATE for September 10. The reason they had to call these measures of struggle is a merit of the workers of Chubut and the whole nation.

Down with Arcioni!
Out with his Cabinet Minister Massoni and his murderous police!
For a worker and popular government, supported by pickets and workers' struggle organizations!

They are the ones who attacked the picket of Route 40 on August 1st, 2017 and disappeared and killed Santiago Maldonado, when he fought alongside a handful of Mapuche fighters for the freedom of Facundo Jones Huala and against the big landowners.
But now we are thousands. And we will get justice for our salary, for our families and for Santiago Maldonado.
This is the way to free Daniel Ruiz, acquit the oil workers of Las Heras, who were sentenced for life and imprisonment for the only "crime" of fighting against the wage tax and for "equal work, equal pay" and to end the persecution of all imprisoned and prosecuted workers and popular fighters.

The power of the workers and the poor people must be set up
We must end this democracy for the rich and conquer the democracy of those from below, the vast majority of the people.


We have to begin coordinating and centralizing all unions and workers organizations and the exploited in struggle, the thousands who took to the streets of Chubut today.
A General Assembly of base delegates must be set up with the mandate of all the unions in struggle, the students, the Districts Assemblies, the Unemployed Committees. Such organism would have all the authority to disarm the murderous police, the gunmen of the trade union bureaucracy, servant of the transnationals; to end with Arcioni's Government and recover Argentinean oil for the oppressed nation, expropriating the entire oil industry.
Today the oil workers of Chubut, oppressed by those traitors of the union bureaucracy who sold the collective agreement out, are feeling the heat of the struggle of the majority of workers. Together with them, they will get rid of that picket of scabs and strikebreakers of the oil bureaucracy set up in route 3 and 26 and will recover the routes and streets under workers’ control.
To do this, let's set up a unified Self-Defense Committee of all the workers' organizations in struggle.

We cannot allow a new workers' massacre in Patagonia. The people do not deserve such misery and hunger in one of the richest provinces of the nation. They have "black gold" under their feet and there it is the wealth for health, education and decent jobs for all, which we will be conquered by setting up Worker-Popular Provisional Government supported by the masses 'organizations in struggle of the entire province. It will be a revolutionary struggle bastion of all the exploited of the nation against capitalists. The power of the workers and the poor must be established.
We must put an end to this democracy for the rich and conquer the democracy of those from below, the broad majority of people.

Open the road to the “Chubutazo”!
We must open the road to a triumphant “Argentinazo”!

Macri's Government -supported by the Fernandez-Fernandez and the union bureaucracy, imperialism and capitalists- is throwing the entire bankruptcy to the workers and exploited. Today in Chubut one of the main battles of the entire workers movement of the country is developing so that the capitalist, bankers and oligarchy pay the crisis they have provoked. The result of the combat of the exploited of Chubut will largely define how the battlefield will be for workers across the nation.

The conditions that motivate the struggle of Chubut are those suffered by the entire labor movement and the exploited of the country, who are suffering a real war of the capitalists and their Government, with devaluation and robbery of their salaries, thousands of layoffs, 50% of machines stopped and widespread starvation, while the nation's reserves and wealth are emptied and looted by the IMF and Wall Street bankers, leaving the provinces in bankruptcy.

If today the struggle of the workers of Chubut has not been spread out throughout the country, it is absolute responsibility of the betrayal of trade union bureaucracy.
In the streets and routes of Chubut, a fight against the oil bureaucracy is developing. They were the first to sell out collective agreements imposing the fiercest labour flexibility on the oil workers, who lost thousands of jobs and gains. This is the "social pact" through which they support Macri's Government and it will be deepened by Fernandez. The outbreak of Chubut workers isolation is the same fight against this infamous "social pact" for salary and collective agreements, against layoffs and labor flexibility. This is the way to face the electoral trap of the bosses' parties, the IMF and the capitalists and defeat the exploiters' offensive, taking up the path of the revolutionary combat of December 18, 2017 and 2001.

Down with the union bureaucracy and its infamous "social pact"!
For self-defence committees against the gunmen strikebreakers and against repression!
We must unify all those who are fighting!
Everyone to Chubut!
National Coordinator of workers in struggle, combative
Unionism and the unemployed movement!

This is an immediate task, proved by the teachers and state workers strike of the rank and file imposed the national leaderships, the oil workers’ strike, the Subway struggle, the mobilizations of the unemployed workers, etc. The strike called by CTERA for 5/9 and the strike of ATE on 10/9 has to be the beginning of a national struggle plan to conquer the General Strike!
The parties and groups of FIT-U lead tens of union sections, shop stewards’ commissions and student federations throughout the country. But unfortunately, the FIT-U has not yet put all its forces to break the isolation of Chubut workers and spread out their struggle nationwide.
There enough conditions and willingness to fight and coordinate all those who are fighting throughout the nation. The union bureaucracy makes us fighting sector by sector, thus the Government and the bosses defeat every workers' struggle one by one. We cannot keep fighting divided. We have to face the miserable "social pact" made by the traitors of the trade union bureaucracy with Macri, which they will do again with the F-F to continue selling out the salary, collective agreements and jobs.
The Left proposes today to "anticipate the elections" or calls for an emergency meeting of the bourgeois Parliament, when all the laws against workers are always coming out of that cave of bandits. The fight to defeat the Government, the attack of the capitalists and the electoral trap is in the streets, on the pickets and coordinating and regrouping the workers who are fighting to break the wall the union bureaucracy and its gunmen built to fence workers' struggles.

There is no time to lose! The forces of the shop stewards’ commissions that we won against the bureaucracy, the SUTNA, the opponents to Baradel of SUTEBA and of the University Federations and militant Students Organizations must be at the service of joining all the sectors in struggle throughout the country and coordinating their fight together with Chubut workers. The Combative Unionism leaderships must put all its forces at the service of conquering this Fighting National Coordinator Body.

Chubut workers show the way
We must defeat the electoral trap of the capitalists that conceals a fierce attack on the workers' gains
Out with Macri! Everybody out!
Assemblies, pickets and GENERAL STRIKE!
For a worker’s way out of the crisis

Let’s disregard the fake collective bargains of the union bureaucracy that sells out our salaries and collective agreements!
Enough with unemployed workers bureaucracy that leads the unemployed to beg alms!
Decent work for all! Reduction of working hours and one more shift in all factories without salary reduction for all available hands! We have to make the factories and machines that the capitalists stopped produce! Nationalization without compensation and under workers’ control of any factory that closes suspends or dismisses!
Enough of the high cost of life and wages' robbery: $ 60,000 minimum wage, vital and mobile indexed with trigger clause!

To get cheap food for everyone: Elimination of VAT! Expropriation without compensation of the oligarchy, large supermarkets and the entire chain of intermediaries of basic food and basic consumer goods!
For price and supply control committees organized by the unions and the unemployed movement!
Re-nationalization without compensation and under workers’ control of the entire oil industry! Progressive taxes on big fortunes!

Let’s open the accounting books of all branches of the industry to prove the capitalists' super profits! Down with the trade secret!

We must break with the IMF and expropriate without payment and under workers' control the banks, the imperialist transnationals and the capitalists!

Argentina WILL BE socialist OR WALL Street COLONY