Successful CWI public meeting in Caracas

Venezuela:

Successful CWI public meeting in Caracas

ON 7 APRIL the CWI section in Venezuela together with the union of
the hospital workers of the Algodanal in Caracas held a successful
public meeting about the widespread protest action by students and
workers in France.

Celso Calfullan, CWI, Caracas

The draconian CPE law proposed by the French ruling class would
introduce a contract which would allow young workers to be sacked in the
first two years of their employment, without explanation. Two days after
the meeting the law was withdrawn as a result of the mass movement of
French workers and youth

More than 100 workers attended the meeting – amongst them members of
Sintrasalud, the trade union of hospital workers, two community radio
stations, and representatives of workers in struggle such as the
comrades from Race, a pharmaceutical company.

The latter explained their attempts to establish a trade union, their
illegal sacking from the factory, their struggle for union recognition,
and for the union leaders to be re-admitted to the workplace.

The meeting also welcomed two community leaders from Petare, a
borough of Caracas. Different people from the missions (anti-poverty
projects supported by the government), attended the meeting as well

Karl Debbaut, on behalf of the international secretariat of the CWI,
introduced the meeting.

He highlighted the main aspects of the struggle of the French working
class, such as the defence of basic trade union rights, and the struggle
against neo-liberalism and the growing poverty (higher than what we
generally assume here in Latin America), that these policies are
creating in the most advanced capitalist countries.

The speaker also pointed out the undemocratic nature of parliamentary
politics in Western Europe. When politicians insist on implementing a
law 73% of the French population is against, one has to ask what kind of
democracy are we talking about?

The audience was very interested in the introduction which was
followed with a lively debate. Many questions were asked about how the
ideas of socialism are understood in France and the other European
countries.

Other participants asked for more details about the methods used in
the struggle of the French students and workers and about the precise
meaning of the law proposed by the French government.

The public meeting was without any doubt a new and special
experience. Because, in general, many of us in Latin America have the
vision that the European working class is privileged and that they do
not struggle directly against capitalism. The meeting also stressed the
need for an international struggle against capitalism and
neo-liberalism.

We drew up a very positive balance from this meeting between workers
living in very different cultures but with so much in common that we can
learn from each other.


Kazakhstan

Socialist Party members protested outside the Kazakhstan embassy in
London last week over the attack on landless residents in the Shanyrak
district of Almaty by the city authorities.

The authorities want to bulldoze the residents homes in order to
build entertainment complexes and elite flats for Kazakhstan’s new rich.
(see last week’s the socialist, with more details on

www.socialistworld.net
)

A letter of protest was delivered while Socialist Party members
explained to passers-by that the struggle for the streets of Shanyrak is
a struggle against president Nazarbayev’s regime and its
bandit-capitalist supporters.