Americas

The court appointed administrator at Cipla has been at it again. After being expelled from Flasko after an attempt to sack the Factory Committee there, he has now threatened to “crush” the workers. Facing pressure from all side, the workers at Flasko are standing firm in the defence of workers’ control, their jobs, and their factories.

Miner’s Memorial Day took place this past weekend on Vancouver Island to celebrate the memory of Ginger Goodwin and the struggles of the miners. A good contingent of youth were present to take part in meetings and discussions.

June 24, 1967, entered the memory of the Bolivian people and of the entire world as one of the cruelest episodes in history. The Mineworkers Trade Union Federation of Bolivia (FSTMB) sent us a message commemorating these events. See also in Spanish.

 

The war in Vietnam, which completely transformed the situation in the U.S.A., did not begin in a planned way. The U.S.A. was sucked into it almost by accident. It began with a covert operation, the sending of officers and “advisers” to prop up an unpopular and corrupt government against its own people. This is the usual style of U.S. imperialism! The regime of Ngo Dinh Diem was guilty of vicious repression in South Vietnam. Buddhist monks burned themselves alive in protest. Finally, Diem was assassinated by his own generals.

 

This year’s U.S. Perspectives will bring up to date key aspects of last year’s extensive World and U.S. Perspectives documents. In the past 12 months, the contradictions of the world capitalist system have continued to build up, resulting in violent explosions of the class struggle in one country after another, and preparing even more explosive developments for the coming period.

Flasko workers have successfully defended their factory for a second time. You can see video footage of yesterday’s event and read an appeal from the workers for solidarity in defending the factory and their jobs.

Today the major industrialized country with the highest proportion of working days not worked due to strikes or lockouts is Canada, the only OECD country with a higher rate is crisis-ridden Iceland. The high strike rate in Canada is now leading to further radicalisation as workers in the manufacturing sector begin factory occupations against plant closures. Canadian workers are setting the pace; the world will follow.

The newly appointed administrator of Cipla/Interifbra recently visited Flasko, another occupied factory, and attempted to sack the general coordinator of the Factory Council. The intention is clear, the Brazilian ruling class wants to crush the occupied factory movement. Urgent solidarity is needed to defend the workers, their jobs, and the occupied factory movement.

After the brutal police intervention in the Cipla factory at the end of May the solidarity campaign has been gaining momentum. On June 13 a rally was held outside the factory with many trade union delegations taking part from Brazil as well as representatives of occupied factories from Argentina, Paraguay and Venezuela.

As part of the international campaign in support of CIPLA workers, Hands off Venezuela and Young Socialist activists gathered yesterday in front of the Brazilian embassy in Vienna. In Belgium and Germany also the struggle of the CIPLA/Interfibra workers in Joinville was taken up with the Brazilian Embassy.

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 and Esteban Volkov, Trotsky’s grandson, addressed a packed meeting last week in the auditorium of the Leon Trotsky Museum, in Coyoacan, Mexico, to launch the Mexican edition of Leon Trotsky’s Stalin’s Gangsters.

On May 30 the Mexican edition of Reason in Revolt was launched in a large lecture theatre in the Polytechnic, with about 150 students, workers, trade unionists and peasant activists listening and taking part in the debate. The mood was very enthusiastic and once again shows the powerful impact the Marxist Tendency is having in Mexico.