First of May 2005:

AGAINST THE CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION: ORGANIZE AND FIGHT!

When approaching the First of May 2005, we see capitalist rivalries and severe attacks against the conditions and rights of the workers everywhere on the globe. Capitalism is not only exploiting us economically, socially and culturally: By exploiting the fears of other workers, of loosing jobs, of other races and fears of terrorism etc., the capital attempts to mobilize us for their own economical and military madness.

The world economy is in a very critical situation and can face a dollar collapse. The US thought that the Iraq war was going to pay for itself as Iraqi oil was poured into the world market. Increased oil production would mean lowered oil prices and main OPEC oil- producers as the Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran would be destabilized as they got sharp declines in revenues. Today we see that the result is the opposite: Enormous costs of the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan), high oil prices and lowered profits have all combined to aggravate the US huge deficits.

The oil-exporting countries won`t see their profits shrink as the oil is traded in dollars pr. barrel. The dollar decline makes them to increase the oil price, and more and more to consider the strong euro as an alternative currency for oil transactions. Despite this, developing countries with large US dollar reserves face a growing threat of big losses from a sudden decline in the dollar. We have by this seen changes and diversifying of bank reserves from dollars to euro in many countries.

The situation is dramatically worsened by the energy situation, and already now the International Monetary Fund is alarming about the long-term supplies. According to the IMF, the world faces “a permanent oil shock” and high oil prices because of surging demand from emerging countries and limited new supplies from outside the OPEC. If this “Peak Oil” appears now, and not from 2010 as predicted, it will give fuel for the rivalries of the capitalist powers and by this increased exploitation of the workers.

Capitalist rivalries are going on in all continents of the globe. In the light of “Peak Oil” the capitalist powers are desperately acting as oil-junkies desperately searching for energy to ensure their present and future energy sources. They also know that the ones that control the energy resources and the supply lines, controls the rivals as oil and gas are the lifeblood of capitalism.

The changes in Georgia and Ukraine are major victories for the USA. Georgia is a transit country for the soon finished Baku (Azerbaijan)- Tbilisi (Georgia)-Ceyhan (Turkey) pipeline, routed through Georgia and Kurdish areas, but avoiding Russia and Iran. Ukraine, which is the main transit country for Russian oil to the EU, will just as the new member states of the EU and NATO, be used by the US as a buffer zone to undermine Russian and German/French interests.

The true nightmare of the US and the imperialist powers is that their present and future energy supplies to an increased level become dependent on hostile and/or “unstable” countries. The strategy of the US of controlling the countries in the Eurasian corridor going through East Europe to Central and East Asia, has because of this an important supplement in the one referred to as "The Arc of Instability".

The USA does a lot of things simultaneously in this “Arc of Instability”: From Latin America where they seek to militarize the bloody Plan Colombia to the Andean region, to Africa where they rapidly increase their presence, through the Middle East with the occupation of Iraq and threatening of Syria, to the Afghanistan war in Central Asia and to South East Asia where they threat North Korea and counter the rising China.

Especial attention must be drawn to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf where the USA prepares air-attacks against Iranian strategic military goals and suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons installations in order to provoke a regime change in the country. According to the US veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, the Bush administration uses Pentagon for the secret missions inside Iran instead of CIA to avoid having to report to Congress.

The prepared actions against Iran have, as in the war against Iraq, a very important and hidden reason: The Saddam Hussein regime became a definite target when Iraq converted their oil transactions from dollars to euros. Iran has at least since 2003 been considering of launching an Oil Stock Exchange trading oil in euros. On the 16th of June 2004, the Guardian reported that the plan was to be set into practice in 2005.

Now the plan is, according to the Alexander Gas & Oil, scheduled to August 2005. If it is set into practice, it will both strongly undermine the IPE in London and the NYMEX in New York. It will send chocks into the financial world, as the petrodollar trading is one of the foundations of the US economical hegemony. Taking into account the huge US deficits and weak dollar, a successful Iranian Stock Exchange would be a major threat and US will use all means necessary to prevent it.

We should not be amazed that warriors as Sharon and Bush act as peace-keeping doves. The “Road Map for Peace” is making “Bantustans” of Palestinian territories surrounded by the Wall, and in March 2005 a number of foreign consortia, consisting mostly of US investors, contacted the Israeli government agencies and government company “Petroleum and Energy Infrastructures” with proposals to renew the oil pipeline from Haifa to Iraq through Jordan.

The pipeline can put into practice main strategic interests of the USA and Israel. It can solve the Israeli energy crisis and secure oil transportation to Europe and the USA. But this plan, as others for the Middle East, requires first that the “hostile” regime in Syria is reduced or eliminated, and a Iraq where the resistance, especially the sabotage of the gas and oil pipelines, is crushed.

This strategic project of a pipeline to the Mediterranean get even more important in the light of the prepared attacks against Iran, as the USA and the EU want to get less dependent of the shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has also threatened to block the Strait in case of an attack and by this push the oil price to “all time high”.

In these times it is important to undress the motives of the capitalist powers. The EU is not a soft and humanitarian block countering the USA, and Russia is repressive and goes on with the war in Chechnya etc. And the US military forces taking part in the aid for the victims of the tragic Tsunami, were also clearly demonstrating the US Force in the area. The Strait of Malacca is for example the critical sea link between the Persian Gulf and countries as South Korea, Japan and China.

China, with its present and future huge needs of energy, is more and more considered as a main strategic enemy as they challenge the USA in the “Silk Road” in Asia, have close ties to Iran, and counters the US in Africa and Latin America. In Latin America, Brazil and Venezuela have agreements to increase the export of oil to China, and China speeds up its weapons- and ordinary goods trade with the continent.

Controversies between the USA and the EU are clearly seen on the policy towards Iran and China. On the Iran issue, the EU will have a more modest policy than the US, and on China the EU is confronting the USA by talking about lifting the weapons embargo. The US fears EU alliances with the energy rich Russia and development of relations with Latin America and countries as India and China in Asia.

The tactics of the USA of dividing the EU into “Old Europe” and “New Europe” was openly exposed previous to, and in the initial phase of the occupation of Iraq. The case Iraq and Ukraine show that the US searches to control all energy sources and transport lines of energy of potential challengers to the US hegemony. EU is expanding and is a super power on trade, but it is militarily weak. The block now tries to speed up the military and economical integration and “reforms” by the proposed Constitution.

In Europe, as in all parts of the world, the capitalist rule is “expand or die”. The offensive we see world-wide against the public services are opening of markets and capital for private corporations. Many governments in the world watch the United Kingdom, as the Blair government goes so far as estimates say that a fifth of the public services can be delivered by the country`s private or “voluntary” sector by 2006/2007.

Another main global trend is that permanent jobs are made to temporary ones, and that the permanent ones are less protected. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) uses as many as 22 indicators to compare the level of employment protection in different countries. So the attacks come from the difficulty of dismissal, procedures, and pay for no-fault individual dismissals in regular contracts, to all the variety of temporary work the employers can impose in the work place.

One of these forms of temporary work is made by the Temporary Work Agencies which are multinational corporations making profits from slave labour. Besides their function of dividing the work forces, they will more and more have an international and political impact in the so-called “war against terrorism”. Israel, for example uses labour from the Philippines, Eastern-Europe and China instead of Palestinians because of “security” reasons.

As the global capitalism throws its masks, the states and capitalists dictate the workers to accept “the logic of the market”. The bureaucratic, reformist unions, which are dependent on legislative aid and subsidies from the ones who are pursuing the attacks, must either surrender or fight. If they mobilize at all, they are doomed to fail, since they are not built to counter attacks on broad fronts, and to rely on their own strength. In this way the reformist unions become service-institutions and burdens on the back of the workers, not free tools for self-activity and emancipation.

The only true “job-security” we can rely on as workers comes from ourselves, and the solidarity and actions we are able to make. Contrary to the reformist unions, the IWA rejects integration into the capitalist system. We don`t class collaborate, as for example in "union elections" under state schemes. We don`t have paid union officials, and we don`t receive subsidies from the enemies.

As the attacks come on many fields, the IWA fights on the economical, social, cultural and anti-militarist level. The anarchosyndicalist coherence of the International is essential as the struggle also is a fight for a new system. The IWA`s goal is to replace the capitalism and the state by the free federation of workers free associations - the libertarian communism.

In these repressive times of the “war against terrorism”, we must remember that the First of May is in the commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs. These anarchists were persecuted to stop the strike movement for the 8 hours day in Chicago in 1886. They were unjustly accused of having exploded a provocative bomb, and this can happen again with today`s aggressive and militarist capitalism.

The slogan of the 22nd IWA -Congress, which was held in Granada in December 2004, was "No War between People - No Peace between Classes". The delegates discussed actions against the capitalist wars (Iraq, Chechnya, Colombia etc.), made an internal decision of coordination, and a special statement against the war in Colombia.

The Congress decided to prioritize to support the IWA -Sections and Friends in Latin America, and to have coordinated actions against the Temporary Work Agencies and casualization from week 15 in April to (and including) the First of May 2005. These actions are now organized with the slogan “International actions against Temporary Work!”

The Congress stated that the International Workers Association (IWA) will defend itself and the anarchosyndicalism against attempts of forming parallel structures/parallel international and organizations incorrectly using the initials AIT-IWA, and the International will intensify its work to spread the IWA and the anarchosyndicalism to new countries. The Congress accepted the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative (Serbia) as a new Section, and the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative (Israel/Palestine) as a Friend group.

Since the Congress, the ASI (Israel/Palestine) has informed the IWA that they have dissolved as a group. Instead, the union GWU in Pakistan has asked for affiliation, a group in Guatemala says they want to be an IWA Friend, and the USW in Slovenia, the ASK in Croatia and the large union FSPNI in Indonesia have informed that they want fraternal relations to consider affiliation.

Against the capitalist exploitation: Organize and fight!

Long live the IWA!


Oslo the 20th of April 2005

IWA-Secretariat