Succesful Socialist meeting in Karachi

On Monday the 20th March, the editor of "In Defence of Marxism" Alan Woods spoke at a public meeting in Karachi organised by the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. 150 people attended the meeting, mostly leading trade union activists. This is the report which appeared in one of the main English language dailies of Pakistan The Dawn.

On Monday the 20th March, the editor of "In Defence of Marxism" Alan Woods spoke at a public meeting in Karachi organised by the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. The subject was the crisis of world capitalism. In spite of the problems caused by the Eid holidays (many workers were out of town) 150 people attended the meeting, mostly leading trade union activists. These included the leaders of the Pakistan Steel Mill (65,000 workers) the Karachi Municipal Corporation, the Karachi Port Workers, the Karachi Electrical Supply Corporation, the Telecommunication workers, leaders of the Postal workers in Karachi, the PIA workers, leaders of the unions of several multinationals based in Karachi and the president of the Pakistan People's Party workers' wing known as the People's Labour Bureau. The mood of the meeting was enthusiastic from start to finish. This is the report which appeared in one of the main English language dailies of Pakistan The Dawn:

Workers condemn policy of downsizing

By our staff Reporter

Karachi, March 20th: Speakers at a seminar here on Monday urged workers to struggle against the capitalist system and work hard to get the socialist system implemented in the country.

Speaking at the seminar on "Future of Workers in present political crisis and the international chaos," organised by the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, they said the future of capitalism, based on the exploitation of workers, was bleak.

"Earlier countries were conquered and ruled by force, but now though independent, their economies are being controlled by international lending agencies, the agents of capitalism," they said.

They said the US economy had been experiencing a boom for the past eight years, still workers there staged a demonstration during a meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle recently. This proved workers were not satisfied even in the US, they added. They said the burst of this economic bubble would have a horrible effect on the economies of all the countries as these were interdependent.

They said a recent UN report said more than a billion people were unemployed even during this boom. They said the capitalists had enough money, but more than 7 million children died every year due to diarrhoea, owing to lack of clean drinking water.

The speakers said foreign-funding controlled economies were delicate and they could be crippled anytime by the capitalists as had been seen in the recent past in the East Asian countries like South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand etc.

They said in the capitalists system new technologies did not mean less work-hours, higher wages for workers. But these meant, they deplored long working hours, mass-scale sacking, increased pressure on workers and according to the capitalists, high profits. "Profits are in fact unpaid wages of the workers," they said.

"Conditions in the country are ripe again and a similar workers movement that in 1967-78 brought about change in the country, could again be witnessed soon," the speakers said.

Criticising the policies of downsizing, rightsizing, privatisation of industries and mass-scale retrenchments, they demanded that more jobs be created to counter the growing menace of unemployment.

London-based journalist Alan Woods, Editor of Socialist Appeal and author of many books including "Reason in Revolt," "History of Philosophy," "History of Bolshevism," etc. was the main speaker. Shaikh Mohyuddin, Dr. Zia, Lal Khan and others also spoke. A question-answer session followed the speeches.

The Dawn, 21st March 2000

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