July, 6th 2012 

PARAGUAY

The policy of the bureaucracy of the CNT and CUT-A, sustained by the WSF
Has transformed the Paraguayan working-class into cheap labor to supply the MNCs in MERCOSUR

The Paraguayan heroic working class is one of the fundamental battalions of the working class in the Southern Cone. The treacherous leaderships of trade union bureaucracies, those in Paraguay such as the CNT and the CUT-A first of all, have plotted so never more the Paraguayan working-class stand on its feet. The submission of the latter to the bourgeoisie -imposed by these leaderships with the support of the entire World Social Forum- has allowed the transnational corporations installed in MERCOSUR and the native slaveholding employers to use the Paraguayan working class as cheap labor to supply their businesses in the Southern Cone.
The heart of the Paraguayan working-class lies in the construction workers, who have built the great works of the Itaipu and Yaciretá hydroelectric dams. There the Paraguayan working-class acquired a great skill specialization. This the bourgeoisie knows and so it uses this labor in all major construction projects in MERCOSUR, with the collaboration of the Paraguayan embassies (that are real slave-hiring agencies) and also the unions in Argentina (CGT and CTA) and Brazil (FS and CUT), which are guaranteeing that the Paraguayan workers do not enjoy the rights emblazoned in the labor agreements, so lowing them to work "in black" (unregistered). Also the Paraguayan workers are working in the textile and metallurgical industries; they raise crops and their wives, sisters and cousins, working as new “domestic slaves” clean the mansions of the slaveholding bosses, all at the expense of miserable wages and in the worst living conditions.
The betrayal of the Union leaderships has also imposed terrible working conditions in the same Paraguay, where for example, workers who extract gold, silver and now aluminum, in open-pit mining practiced by Canadian Imperialist firms (such as Rio Tinto) are exposed to cyanide pollution and endless hours of work.
Millions of Paraguayan man and woman workers were stripped of their lands and expelled from their country due to the misery imposed by the imperialist plundering for decades and decades. Lugo, as all the "Bolivarians" gave no bread, decent jobs and land nor justice to the Paraguayan exploited.
Thus, the MNCs, native employers, Governments and States use Paraguayan labor to lower the wages of the entire labor movement and when they need it no more the Paraguayan workers are expelled or even killed.
  The bourgeoisie does not recognize borders, and uses all its institutions to exploit the working class. More than ever, it is necessary to unite in a sole fist all worker organizations in the Southern Cone and the entire Americas to present a unified struggle to the transnationals and the native employer's slaveholding.