Metallurgical Advanced Declaration – PSTU – International Workers League

2023-08-04 17:26:25

A TRIUMPH THAT COULD BE BIGGER

Finally, the bulk of the employers agreed to grant an increase similar to the one claimed by the UOM national secretariat at the beginning of the parity.

And moderate increase, designed from the beginning to be accepted by the employers, which is completed with a commitment not to make new claims or start new fight plans until December; in exchange for a trigger clause that, although it will help prevent inflation from eating away at what has been achieved, loses effectiveness by starting with salaries that will continue to be low

An increase that is far from reversing the years of downward parities, which left metallurgical salaries well below the basic basket, which today amounts to more than $230,000.

But beyond this, an increase that means a huge triumph. Because the employers, led by Paolo Rocca – Techint, provoked this conflict, risking that the fight plan would fail, and the national secretariat would surrender and accept the conditions of the business community. Thus, they sought not only to impose an even smaller increase, but to DEFEAT AND DISCIPLINE the metallurgical workers; and to break the resistance to the labor reform that they want to promote hand in hand with the next government, to take away the rights that we have left. If they had managed to defeat us, the campaign for labor reform would have grown stronger; as well as the threat to do throughout the country what they are doing in Jujuy.

THEY COULD NOT. Despite the fact that the national and sectional secretariats did not fully commit to guaranteeing that the plan of struggle is fulfilled, the workers responded with full force, making the measure historically forceful. We metallurgists demonstrate, once again, the power of unity and the workers’ struggle; we honor our century-old tradition of resistance. And the businessmen, who wanted to break us, ended up divided; with the majority of the entire employers’ chambers asking for a truce, while others continue to insist on maintaining their position.

The bosses suffered a hard blow, and it could have been even worse if instead of signing this agreement, the national secretariat had gone for more: there were plenty of conditions to get a much bigger increase. But unfortunately, the leaders shared the businessmen’s fear that the plan of struggle would end in overflow, and we metallurgists would impose from each factory the will to go far beyond the requests of the national secretariat; so they ended up abiding by the mandatory conciliation, which is a legal instrument that only serves to prevent us from fighting.

For this reason, we must not be satisfied with what has been achieved: we must continue fighting for a real and immediate salary recomposition. It is necessary to fight so that this agreement does not absorb the increases obtained in each factory. We must continue on the streets, fighting to bring the minimum pocket wage to the level of the basic basket, and from there establish the automatic adjustment for inflation; so that there will not be a single metallurgical family below the poverty line again. Each factory must be organized to guarantee that no boss or manager prevents them from fighting or persecuting their colleagues. You have to show solidarity with the struggle, not only from other factories, branches or sections; but that of other unions and sectors, to build a great plan of national struggle against labor reform, adjustment and delivery, beginning by supporting ongoing struggles such as that of the people of Jujuy against Morales, and for the freedom of their prisoners to fight. We must organize to defend ourselves from repression. We must fight to force companies to give work to unemployed colleagues, even reducing the working day without reducing salaries. And it is necessary to fight until substantive measures are imposed against the bosses’ parasitism that enriches itself at the expense of our misery. To go for all this, you have to start by organizing assemblies in each factory that promote mandates and resolutions; and that they serve to create commissions and organizations that take the fight beyond what is allowed by the laws at the service of the employers.

For all this, it is necessary to organize from each factory, those who took the lead in this resistance to the bosses’ plans; to deepen this triumph, and avoid that the leaders prevent us from continuing to truly fight and until the last consequences for our dignity. This triumph showed that we have the strength to achieve it.