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Socialist
Party
USA:
Statements |
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Solidarity
with
the Striking Workers in Europe and Student and Worker Walkouts in
the US this September and October
passed on August 31, 2010 by the SPUSA National Action Committee
Since May of this year, workers in Greece, Italy, France
and Spain have organized increasingly large strikes. In Europe, just as
in the United States, workers are confronted with budget cuts,
union-busting, and labor law ‘reforms’ that favor the rich. In Spain,
labor unions are organizing a general strike on September 29th to
coincide with a meeting of European finance ministers on September 29
in Brussels. It is expected that militant actions in other countries
will also take place on this day.
Workers’ organizations and individuals in Europe have been calling
others to help build September 29 into a day that will begin to awaken
a response by global workers to austerity and attacks on our rights.
In the United States students and workers have called for a repeat of
last year's mass actions and students walk-outs. On October 2nd and 7th
actions are being called to stop budget cuts and other regressive
measures which balance budgets on the backs of students, the poor and
union workers.
We stand with the European workers and our fellow workers and students
in the United States, raising our fists in defiance this September and
October.
As socialists, we must reject the latest onslaught of neo-liberal
attacks on students’ and workers’ rights, working conditions, social
services for our youth, the elderly, and people living with
disabilities.
Inasmuch as we call on the US and European governments to immediately
halt austerity plans that are killing our people, we also remind our
sisters and brothers in the movement that we cannot settle for reforms
– we must reject capitalism as a whole. Just as globalization has
opened borders to exploitation, we must stand united for the
transformation of our societies from the rule of the wealthy few to the
radically democratic governance of the collective wealth of the many.
Together we recognize that our politics and our approaches to this mass
strike ought to reflect the open, transparent and democratic qualities
that are prerequisites for genuine socialist democracy. It is necessary
to show unity in action as well as theoretical, tactical, and political
distinction from reformist parties and labor union bureaucracies.
With one voice, American and European workers, students and all
oppressed by the capitalist system must rise up and demand an end to
the war on workers, an end to the imperialist occupations in
Afghanistan and Iraq; and an end to capitalism’s war on humanity, thus
giving substance to the words:
Workers of the world, unite!
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