Today, June 12, pickets were organised outside various embassies in Europe to demand that the court order to seize the Cipla and Interfibra factories be
withdrawn, and that these be nationalised and returned to workers’ control and
management.
Response
to Judge Oziel Francisco de Sousa, who decided upon the invasion of CIPLA by
150 armed police with the aim of closing the plant. As we received this article
we heard the news that the administrator has abolished the 30-hour week and
reintroduced 40 hours, a clear indication of the real intentions of the
bosses.
Alan Woods who participated in the Pan-American Conference
of Occupied Factories held last December in the Cipla factory in Joinville,
Brazil, has issued this appeal to workers of all countries to come to the aid
of their Brazilian brothers. Keep up the protest campaign and also send letters
of solidarity to the workers in Joinville.
With court orders and arrest warrants against the management of the Flasko factory, which operates under workers’ control, the decision has been made to hand over the administration of the company to an administrator under the control of the old bosses. The administrator named by the judge has already dismissed 50 workers, starting with all the members of the Factory Council elected by the workers’ assembly.
Earlier this year a
Spanish comrade visited the occupied factories in Brazil and
wrote this report. This was before 150 armed police raided the factory on
orders of a judge. This report gives you a taste of what the CIPLA workers had
achieved. We must not allow all this to be destroyed. Please take part in the
international solidarity campaign and raise this issue wherever you can in the
labour movement.
The workers of the occupied
factory CIPLA were surprised this morning by 150 men, heavily armed, from the
Federal Police, who invaded the factory in order to arrest the members of the factory committee.
