Neuquén 29/05/2013 9 weeks of heroic strike: the rank and file teachers put all their energies and the leadership sold out the fight behind the backs of the majority mandate of the assemblies To defend union democracy in our union From every school in the province, from every assembly of the we must propel and set up a
After a hard end of the strike, where we had nothing, with our wages ever more devaluated, with schools in ruins, without health insurance or any of the demands we fought for, and with the anger of being sold out for those who proved being the real organizers of defeats, and now the questions raised on the school’s halls are: “How shall we go on? What’s to be done? Who shall we trust?” Because FURA, behind the back of the rank and file and ignoring the majority mandate from the assemblies, sold out 9 weeks of fight and huge sacrifices of the education workers, where they always supported and fought for the resolutions voted in the assemblies. Because the “general secretaries”, headed by FURA, using the bureaucratic statutes used by Minister of Labor to submit workers’ organizations, and based and subordinated to the isolation imposed by Kirchnersit bureaucracy of CTERA and the division among public servants ranks in the province due to CTA, managed to imposed the sold out after 9 weeks fighting. They did it against the interests of the majority in exchange of an agenda of meetings with the government! In the facts, the leadership, which call itself militant and even classist, gave more importance to its commitment with the government than the will of the majority of the rank and file assemblies. And the only way of imposing such sell out is by trampling the organisms and the democracy that teachers’ rank and file created to fight. None of these facts were unnoticed by the education workers, and therefore they already indentified those leaders as the continuity of FUS, i.e. as the transmission belt of the interests of the government to ATEN. What is the difference of methods of the minority that leads ATEN, who claim the right of vetoing the decisions of the assembly, with the methods used by the bureaucracy of UPCN or ATE? We are before a big challenge: we must defend union democracy conquered during the strike, from the assemblies and the voting with raised hands, to recover our union and prevent that a small minority kneels it down before the government. In order to give weight to the voices of the teachers, who are the majority of the union, who fought restless against Sapag, who didn’t trust in the negotiation tables, who went back to the ruined schools with anger while those who sold us out are still under union licenses, but even though we were betrayed we are still resisting. In order to ATEN be again a tool to fight to defend public education: Let’s vote in every school of the province, in all the levels setting up a powerful Body of Province Delegates, with delegates with mandate from the rank and file voted in the assemblies where al comrades can talk and vote, with disregard of being teachers, auxiliaries or administrative workers, whether they are full of substitute teachers, affiliated or not to the union. The delegates must be revocable at any time by the majority of the assembly that voted them. This organism will have authority and legitimacy to call a general assembly or a congress of delegates from the entire province, and in that organism will put the best comrades to be the militant and democratic leadership that our union needs, which will really represent the majority of the education workers and will prevent that any minority can make decisions behind the backs of the mandate of the assemblies. FURA didn’t take a single step down since the sell out. On the contrary, they have imposed us the agenda of the agreements of Sapag, with their times and agenda. There is no time to loose, we must take this motion to every kindergarten, school and institute. To the association that opposed FURA, like Fuchsia and Purple, as well as the comrades of Senillosa and the association Red, we call you to break the subordination to the rules of the bureaucracy, the plenary meeting of General Secretaries and their statutes. You must break with the policy of submission to FURA and put their forces and influences to create this body of province delegates. Calling to set up or strength a body of delegates, to do petitorios to revoke the mandate with the ruling of the Labor Minister and the government, means leading the best layers of the vanguard, who already broke with FUS-FURA, back to their feet. After the imposition of isolation and defeat, managed to put the militant vanguard of ATEN in a defensive position. However, despite the efforts of so many associations and political currents wrote thousands of pages to hide the end of the teachers’ strike in Neuquen with those responsible for the sell out, and thus prevent the militant vanguard from drawing the right lessons of their fight and can distinguish clearly who are their allies and who are their enemies, life proves that the raised hands were right while they were on strike. We can see how rank and file teachers of Buenos Aires are preparing to continue the fight that the bureaucracy of Baradel have been boycotting since the beginning of the year. A few days ago the Multicolor List of SUTEBA (a front made by the associations that created FURA in ATEN, and those who are in the opposition like Fuchsia-IS) won 11 of the biggest like La Matanza, La Plata, Quilmes, San Martín, Bahía Blanca, etc. This proves that our fight isn’t an exception, but the demand of all the education workers in the country. The militant vanguard of ATEN can prevent that this big first step of the teachers of Buenos Aires be imposed isolation and subordination to union bureaucracy, as Multicolor from Neuquen did, called FURA. The rank and file of the Multicolor must know that the militant vanguard from Neuquen wasn’t wrong when they voted in their assemblies unanimously the need of a National Teachers Congress, which FURA prevented over and over again. They also must know that there were and there are conditions and forces enough to break the isolation and help the fierce and heroic teachers of Tierra del Fuego, who are resisting in south. They must know that there are plenty of forces to defeat the agreements of sell out signed by Sapag, in order to impose CTERA a big national strike and conquer the demands of the teachers of the entire country. The rank and file of the Multicolor association must take this road. From all the schools from Neuquen and Buenos Aires must make this motion to be truth. What we need to conquer all our demands is unify workers and organize a big fight. There are enough forces in the country! From the sectors who are resisting the sold out of ATEN, from the multicolor rank and file of SUTEBA, from the oil workers of Santa Cruz, from Felfort, Kraft, from the workers of Bus Line 60, from Hospital Borda, etc. There is no time to lose. From all these fights that concentrate the demands of the entire working class, they must be coordinated with an unified list of demands in a Front of Struggling Workers to regroup the militant vanguard and face the division imposed by the bureaucracy of CGT and CTA and hit as one fist Kirchner’s government and imperialist TNCs. Only by this, breaking the isolation and unifying workers ranks, we can fight… No with clossing clases. No with reforms to education and decreased of job security. Permanent positions to all outsourced workers, with full rights and recognizing years of service. Against the plunder of ISSN. To recover all the services of our health insurance without increasing the fees. No with the increase of age for retirement or the increment of compulsory contributions. The budget to solve all our demands exists! It is stolen by the oil, miner TNCs and their banks and it is guaranteed by province and national governments and is guarded by CGT and CTA bureaucracies. We must attack the TNCs profits! Progressive taxes to all TNCs and their banks that plunder the wealth of the province and the country, in the road of conquering the expropriation without compensation and under workers’ control! Before the same imperialist oil companies who fight the teachers of Neuquen, the owners of Patagonia, the owners of the bosses justice that leaves free the killer Sobisch, to lead the anti-worker offensive with Sapag, and also killer Poblete in an open provocation, while doesn’t give any justice to Carlos Fuentealba. The same justice hides the disappearance of Daniel Solano in Choele Choel in hands of the murderous police of Rio Negro and fruit TNCs. Before this same bosses rose the oil workers of Las Heras with the warcry of “Down with the tax to wages!” “Equal job for equal wage!” and, “We are all oil workers!” After 6 comrades were imprisoned and tortured for 3 years in the prisons of Kirchner and the oil companies, ad their city –Las Heras- suffer a Videlist siege, today they want to condemn the workers for fighting for their demands that belonged the all the workers of Argentina. If one is being attacked we are all being attacked! Our union can’t be out of this fight and we must take it in our hands, actively, fighting for the acquittal of the oil workers of Las Heras, to end with the prosecution of over 6500 popular fighters, for the freedom of all political prisoners and against criminalization of the social protest. Thus we will conquer the best conditions to fight to defend our right to go on strikes and against the threats of summaries and charges by Sapag, his anti-worker government and justice, like the rule of Judge Rossi in ChosMalal. Worker and popular courts to judge and punish all the anti-worker judges who prosecute and imprison fighting workers! Assemblies in every school must return! For assemblies in all the districts and start choosing their delegates and to work this motion in the entire province. Every school knows who are the ones who sold out the fight in the past and now. They suffer the rejection in their schools, they are in the newspapers and in the TV, but we never see them in schools now. Rank and file teachers already voted in their assemblies, and there is no reason why these conquers must be sell out nor to FURA nor to FUS nor to the sub-secretary of Labor. Out with the bureaucracy of the general secretaries of FURA! Long live worker democracy, the democracy of those who fight, which allow the rank and file workers evaluate every step they take in their fight, to change and correct themselves! This is the real union democracy, which the rank and file teachers set up and bureaucrats aborted to look after their privileges. We, who think that our defeat, wasn’t due to the “huge strength of Sapag” (PTS – Black List), the ones who don’t believe the lies of the so called political backwardness of the teachers (POR – Purple List), or low acceptance (PSTU – Indigo among others) as an excuse for the sell out; the ones who defend the organisms of selfdetermination set up by the rank and file teachers to fight, the ones who saw that all we needed to with was having a leadership at the level of the energies of the rank and file teachers during their 9 weeks strike, we call you to join forces and organize to fight for this program and defend workers’ democracy to set up a leadership to be at the same level of the fight. Democracia Obrera Neuquén |