We Shall Rise Again
15th June 2010, 13:07
http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest140610.html#eng
The International Trade Union Confederation released its Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights for 2009 last Wednesday [June 9] and many of the findings make for disturbing reading.
The report found that 101 trade unionists had been killed in 2009, an increase of 30 per cent on the previous year. 48 of these murders took place in Colombia, where right-wing forces can act with impunity against trade unionists and other rights activists. There were over 400 attacks on trade unionists recorded in Colombia in 2009, including several assassination attempts and three disappearances.
http://www.eirigi.org/images/manuel_zelaya.jpgAt least 12 trade unionists were killed in Honduras in violence following the coup d’etat against left-wing president Manuel Zelaya in June. This formed part of a spate of attacks on social organisations that oppose the coup.
The report also noted how the international economic crisis has led to attacks on workers’ rights around the world. The report notes that repression has been increasing even in countries with traditionally strong union movements, such as France and Germany.
In the section on Britain and occupied Ireland, the report highlighted the case of a database of over 3,000 workers compiled by 14 construction companies used to blacklist trade unionists and other militant workers.
The report also brought up the ongoing problem of legislation that allows employers to prevent recognition of independent unions in favour of their own ‘company unions’.
The need for independent trade unions fighting on behalf of the working class is as important now as it ever has been. The international economic climate means that workers need organisations that will fight for their interests against those responsible for that climate – the capitalist class.
This need has been brought into focus in Ireland in the past week, with SIPTU general president Jack O’Connor being named ‘Business person of the month’ by the Business & Finance magazine, for his support for the Croke Park deal.
With a programme of further cutbacks on the way both north and south, it is imperative that the organised labour movement realise that the interests of workers and capitalists are not complementary but antagonistic. Then the working class may begin the real fight, as in the words of James Connolly:
[I]“When the worker has so far advanced as to realise that his master's interests are antagonistic to his own, that the master class use every weapon from Parliament to prison to maintain their position against what they consider the encroachment of their serfs, then we have no doubt that the next step in the intellectual development of the worker will be to consider whether it is wise to tolerate longer a class in society which requires to be watched so constantly and guarded against so vigilantly; whether there is indeed any useful function performed by the capitalist and landlord class which the organised workers cannot perform without them. Whether the ownership of property cannot be vested in the organised community, and the conduct of industry entrusted to our trade unions, who could surely furnish men who would organise production and distribution in the interests of all much better than it is at present done by a class animated solely by considerations of profit. When the logic of events forces this question on the Dublin workers as it surely will, we believe that they will not fail to answer it aright, and that the answer will be well for our hopes of a socialist republic.”
ITUC’s Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights can be read at http://survey.ituc-csi.org/ (http://survey.ituc-csi.org/)
The International Trade Union Confederation released its Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights for 2009 last Wednesday [June 9] and many of the findings make for disturbing reading.
The report found that 101 trade unionists had been killed in 2009, an increase of 30 per cent on the previous year. 48 of these murders took place in Colombia, where right-wing forces can act with impunity against trade unionists and other rights activists. There were over 400 attacks on trade unionists recorded in Colombia in 2009, including several assassination attempts and three disappearances.
http://www.eirigi.org/images/manuel_zelaya.jpgAt least 12 trade unionists were killed in Honduras in violence following the coup d’etat against left-wing president Manuel Zelaya in June. This formed part of a spate of attacks on social organisations that oppose the coup.
The report also noted how the international economic crisis has led to attacks on workers’ rights around the world. The report notes that repression has been increasing even in countries with traditionally strong union movements, such as France and Germany.
In the section on Britain and occupied Ireland, the report highlighted the case of a database of over 3,000 workers compiled by 14 construction companies used to blacklist trade unionists and other militant workers.
The report also brought up the ongoing problem of legislation that allows employers to prevent recognition of independent unions in favour of their own ‘company unions’.
The need for independent trade unions fighting on behalf of the working class is as important now as it ever has been. The international economic climate means that workers need organisations that will fight for their interests against those responsible for that climate – the capitalist class.
This need has been brought into focus in Ireland in the past week, with SIPTU general president Jack O’Connor being named ‘Business person of the month’ by the Business & Finance magazine, for his support for the Croke Park deal.
With a programme of further cutbacks on the way both north and south, it is imperative that the organised labour movement realise that the interests of workers and capitalists are not complementary but antagonistic. Then the working class may begin the real fight, as in the words of James Connolly:
[I]“When the worker has so far advanced as to realise that his master's interests are antagonistic to his own, that the master class use every weapon from Parliament to prison to maintain their position against what they consider the encroachment of their serfs, then we have no doubt that the next step in the intellectual development of the worker will be to consider whether it is wise to tolerate longer a class in society which requires to be watched so constantly and guarded against so vigilantly; whether there is indeed any useful function performed by the capitalist and landlord class which the organised workers cannot perform without them. Whether the ownership of property cannot be vested in the organised community, and the conduct of industry entrusted to our trade unions, who could surely furnish men who would organise production and distribution in the interests of all much better than it is at present done by a class animated solely by considerations of profit. When the logic of events forces this question on the Dublin workers as it surely will, we believe that they will not fail to answer it aright, and that the answer will be well for our hopes of a socialist republic.”
ITUC’s Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights can be read at http://survey.ituc-csi.org/ (http://survey.ituc-csi.org/)