ABOUT THE
FUTURE OF WORK WE WANT
Nevertheless,
the outbreak of the world capitalist crisis, caused by the over-accumulation of
capital, created the conditions which enabled an unprecedented assault against
workers’ labor, social security and trade union rights. Multinationals and big
monopoly groups saw a golden opportunity to do away with any labor right that
workers had gained with their own blood and was standing in the capitalist’s
way for the maximization of their profits. Hence, they unleashed a whole
campaign in order to abolish worker’s rights and overcome the crisis, shifting
the burdens to the workers. In other words: the simple workers were those who
“paid” with their own sweat the capitalist crisis in the past, the simple
workers were the same who would pay with their losses the crisis at present.
Of course,
the WFTU, the international class-oriented trade union movement was not taken
by surprise by the anti-workers policies; the monopolies and the industrialists
had already expressed their intentions at a very early stage. The biggest part
of the anti-workers measures taken during the last years in Greece , France ,
Italy Africa there is a solid anti-worker
front aiming to get rid of workers’ rights once and for all.
In the
light of the above, it seems that the future of work prepared by the ruling
class for those who produce the world’s wealth is not that bright. Therefore,
the world class oriented workers’ movement has to ask itself: Is this the
future we want for us and our children? Unpaid work, starvation wages,
contemporary slavery? The debate on the future of work neither is another
talking shop, nor a vague concept. The class-oriented trade union movement,
wherever it may act, in its country or inside the ILO, has to emphasize on this
point.
So, this
depends on the urgent tasks that the class-oriented movement has to incorporate
to its agenda, with primary responsibility to recover the losses it suffered
during the last years of the crisis.
Thus, we,
as WFTU, we can’t imagine the future of work debated today in this room,
without Collective Agreements. We can’t imagine the future of work without a
stable job with full rights. We can’t tolerate that we are going to work
without social security rights. It is unacceptable to compromise with
generalized unemployment, poverty and bosses’ terrorism in the workplaces.
This way,
in order to protect all these workers’ achievements, we have to build a strong
trade union movement. And in order to build a militant labor movement not only
we need trade union rights but above all, we have to guarantee the protection
of the right to strike. By rejecting every government and employers pressure to
restrict it, we can create a strong labor movement, capable of thinking and
acting for its own. A movement capable of fighting against the regression of
workers’ struggles, the poor level of organization in the workplaces. A
movement that would give the opportunity to women to participate and be elected
in its ranks and would also ensure the organization of immigrants and refugees,
while being a strong enemy of fascism, racism and xenophobia.
At the same time, we share some of the worries expressed here about digitalization and new technologies’ repercussion to the world of work. For us, every technology innovation should be judged on the basis of worker’s lives. We strongly believe that new technologies must contribute to the workers’ well-being and not to the maximization of monopolies’ profits; that is to say that new technologies must be put at the service of the simple people. In parallel, we would also want to underline the impact of the climate change, especially under the light of the terrible natural phenomena which inflicted great damages to
Thank you,
