Tijuana conference on worker unity

Special to Workers World
Tijuana, Mexico

Leaders of working-class movements in Latin America and the United States met here Dec. 2-4 on the theme of “Working Class Unity and Continental Integration.” Delegates came from Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and the U.S.

The event started on an upbeat note even before the first talk. As people gathered, live video coverage was showing the historic founding conference of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. This organization is an alternative to the Organization of American States, which Washington initiated in 1948 and which is headquartered in Washington. Until 2009, the OAS excluded Cuba. CELAC includes every country of the Western Hemisphere except the U.S. and its junior partner, Canada.

The resurgence of the workers’ struggle around the world — including within the U.S. with the Occupy movement — infused this eighth annual Tijuana conference with optimism.

The program began by awarding diplomas to those delegates who had just attended three days of classes led by the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC), the World Federation of Trade Unions, the Union of Mexican Electrical Workers (SME), Unión del Barrio and the International Action Center. Anibal Melo of the CTC, an instructor, handed the graduates their diplomas.

Juan Castillo of Uruguay, general coordinator of the Trade Union Encounter for Our America (ESNA), gave opening remarks. Then National Miners Union Section 65 secretary-general, Sergio Tolano Lizarraga, described the struggle of copper miners in Cananea in the Mexican state of Sonora. They have been on strike since July 2007, initially over health and safety issues. “We don’t struggle begging and crawling like worms,” said Tolano. “The miners are very proud.”

Ignacio Meneses, coordinator of the Labor Exchange, which sponsored the conference along with the WFTU, the IAC and Unión del Barrio, opened the first panel observing: “We have a time of integration with ALBA [the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas], CELAC, ESNA and WFTU.”

Raymundo Navarro, a member of the Secretariat of the CTC, explained the challenges facing Cuba. While prices for the country’s chief exports, sugar and nickel, have plummeted, the cost of Cuba’s main imports, food and fuel, have gone up. In addition, the number of young people in the work force has fallen while the country has a growing number of retirees.

Why? The liberation of women in revolutionary Cuba has allowed women to opt for fewer children. At the same time, Cuba has raised life expectancy to almost 80 years for women and 78 for men. Now, “Wealth is shared faster than it is being created.” Cuba must raise productivity so no one is left out in the cold.

João Batista, director of international relations of the Confederation of Brazilian Workers (CTB) and technical secretary for ESNA, began with the premise that the systemic crisis of capitalism has no exit. There are 200 million unemployed in the world. Just to go back to pre-recession levels of unemployment would require the creation of 80 million new jobs.

Citing 16 recent general strikes in Greece, the Occupy movement in the U.S. and the “relative decline of U.S. imperialism,” Batista said, “The world is in transition.”

In Brazil, the CTB supported the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva because Lula confronted neoliberalism and strengthened the internal economy. The CTB supports Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, but sees Brazil’s dependence on international finance capital as a contradiction.

The CTB is one of six labor federations in Brazil. They recently all joined with social movements in “a conference of the working class.” Their common program includes increased internal development, redistribution of income, higher wages, agrarian reform and a shorter workweek with no cut in pay.

Humberto Montes de Oca, external secretary of SME, described the situation in Mexico. The U.S. government’s “Operation Fast and Furious,” purportedly to combat drug trafficking, has left 55,000 dead over five years. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of workers have been fired under the anti-union government of President Felipe Calderón.

Mexico has 55 million people officially living in poverty. For two years, since Calderón decided to privatize the state-owned electric company and fire the workers, SME has been fighting capitalism. The government made an offer to re-employ union members in small enterprises and cooperatives. “This would fragment our collective identity,” said Montes de Oca. “Our general assembly met yesterday and we told them to go to hell.” SME is part of a resurgence in which the class struggle has been reactivated worldwide.

Martha Grevatt, an autoworker and union activist from Detroit, spoke on the economic crisis in the U.S., where the official figure of 9 percent unemployment does not show the true extent of suffering. That figure, she noted, does not include discouraged workers or young workers who have never had a job. It does not include people in prison or those who have joined the military due to lack of civilian jobs, the underemployed, the “working poor” or undocumented workers. “The working class of the U.S., like that of the rest of the world,” said Grevatt, “has only two choices: class struggle or suicide.”

This panel set the tone for the entire conference, which was decidedly pro-socialist. “For us, what comes first,” Navarro explained, “is to consolidate our socialism so that the flame that we lit will stay alive and burning so that other countries can pick up the torch.” Batista held up Cuba as the model and said, “There are new possibilities for the struggle for socialism in our country and the rest of the world.”