More than 20,000 workers of the industrial center of Cadiz, in Andalusia (Spain), called for an indefinite strike on November 16, demanding the renewal of the collective labor agreement, higher wages, better working conditions and job protection in the context of plans for deindustrialization, capitalist restructuring and rising inflation.
The just demands of the workers’ unions received in response a sharp rejection from the owners and a brutal repression by the national police on the orders of the “progressive” government of the SWPS-Podemos-CPS coalition and, in particular, of the SWPS member, Minister of Internal Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
From the very first moment, the Spanish bourgeois state spared no resources to prevent and suppress the workers’ strike. Rubber bullets, tear gas and military means such as BMR were used in attacks on the strikers’ demonstrations and pickets.
Bourgeois states and governments everywhere strengthen authoritarianism and repression against workers, restrict political and trade union freedoms, the right to strike and organization, impose deathly silence in front of owners’ terrorism in workplaces in order to protect the profits of capitalists. In Italy too, we are witnessing the systematic use of State repression and legal prosecution against the struggle and strikes of advanced workers. This is a further manifestation of the reactionary nature of the imperialist phase of capitalism. In general, all over Europe the working class is being attacked by business groups and the EU and governments expressing their interests, which, in the name of competitiveness and economic recovery, are dumping the burden of the capitalist crisis on the working class and the people through nonstop attacks on workers’ rights, cuts in wages, pensions and basic social services, mass layoffs and rising cost of living.
Once again, the bourgeois state and democracy cruelly reveal their true nature as means of class oppression at the service of capitalists, reinforced by the role of the new and old social-democracy and opportunists in the government. We are seeing this in Mexico with Morena, as we have already seen it in Greece with Syriza. In Italy too we have enough experience of the participation of opportunist self-styled “communist” parties in center-left governments and are well aware of the hypocritical and deceptive nature of the statements of “indignation” by such opportunist forces as Podemos and the CPS on the anti-labor repression by the government in which they are participating. They are fully responsible for the actions of the Government of Pedro Sanchez.
Either with the working class or with the capitalist class: there is no third way. Any form of capitalism will always mean exploitation and repression of the working class.
The struggles of metalworkers in Cadiz, GKN mechanics of Campi Bizenzio in Italy, COSCO dockers in Greece and many others are connected with each other. These sparks show that a cohesive, conscious and organized working class has the power to direct the current situation in a different direction and take the future into their own hands. They also teach us that the labor union struggle must be radical and clearly anti-capitalist, and overcome the barriers of social reconciliation, the suffocating control by labor union bureaucrats, class collaboration by social-democratic and opportunist forces by strengthening the workers’ militancy, unity and activism in the class struggle. Only a concrete struggle can gather solidarity and mobilization of other popular strata around the working class, paving the way for a counterattack against capital, its state and its government. Communists must be at the forefront of the proletarian struggle in order to direct it towards the overthrow of the capitalist exploitative system, while their participation in governments that promote it or even their just indirectly support for them leads in the opposite direction and contributes to strengthen the class enemy.
The Communist Front (Italy) warmly welcomes the struggle of the metalworkers of the Gulf of Cadiz, which is an example for the entire working class, both in Spain and internationally. Expressing our full internationalist solidarity with the workers of the Gulf of Cadiz, we undertake to bring their experience of struggle to the attention of the Italian working class and join the Communist Party of Workers of Spain (PCTE) in condemning the brutal repression perpetrated against the workers by the SWPS-Podemos-CPS Government, headed by Pedro Sanchez.
No to bourgeois anti-worker repressions!
Long live the strike of Cadiz metalworkers!
Workers all over the world, unite!
Rome, November 26, 2021
COMMUNIST FRONT (ITALY)
Political Bureau of the Central Committee
