Image: 

Against the Labor Reform, Cuts and Attacks against the Working Class.

The CNT rejects any negotiations over rights already won and demands the repeal of the Labor Reform.

The Confederal Committee of the CNT has agreed to call 24-hour general strike on March 29, extending the call already made in Galicia and Euskadi, a call that will be formalized in the coming days.

CNT rejects any negotiations on the rights won by the working class struggles in years, so it calls this strike calls with the main objective of immediately repealing the labor reform approved by parliament yesterday, which it considers a frontal assault against the rights and the living conditions of the working class, continuing the measures taken by the previous government, such as the labor reform of 2010, the lowering of wages in public administration or the cuts in pensions and public services that the current government is deepening.

CNT calls for an end to economic policies designed to make workers pay for the crisis of the banks and employers, which has led to an intolerable number of unemployed, which continues to grow and to the impoverishment and worsening of the living conditions of the working class.

CNT also calls the strike against the cuts, the day before a State Budget will be implemented, constituting a brutal attack on public services and social rights.

CNT rejects the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining reached by CCOO and UGT and the CEOE last February, in addition to the amendments proposed by these unions to the parliamentary process of reform, rejecting them as being no valid alternative, as it shares the spirit of reform and assumes the logic of the employers and the government, assuming that the output of the crisis must be determined by assignments on the rights of workers, starting by placing the working class in a position of weakness. The same logic brought these unions to accept the extension of the retirement age to 67 after the general strike of 29S.

For the CNT, the strike of March 29 should be just the beginning of a process of increasing and sustained mobilization, to incorporate the whole of the working class and those most disadvantaged and affected by the capitalist crisis, to curb the constant dynamic of agression against our rights, laying the foundations for the recovery and conquest of new social rights in the context of a profound social transformation.

All these reasons have led the CNT to make its call for March 29. With this call, the CNT wants to cover all those who are committed to real, sustained confrontation, to return the attacks against the working class with the same degree of forcefulness we are receiving, along with all those labor organizations that share these objectives and reject the politics of the pact and social peace.

For CNT, the frontal rejection of the politics and model of trade union bureaucracies of CCOO and UGT, discredited with large sections of workers, should not turn into an excuse against the mobilization and struggle but should spur it on, to reinforce it though a different form of unionism, through direct action, autonomy, and mutual support. Given the magnitude of the attacks we are suffering, the unity of the workers is fundamental, a unity that has to be manifested from the bottom, from assemblies in the workplaces and neighborhoods, demonstrations and pickets to mobilize against those responsible and the beneficiaries of this situation: employers, banks and the government, an unstoppable process that raises a barrier against the temptations to turn everybody's rights into anyone's currency.

It is time for all workers, employed or unemployed, retired, illegally employed, students, or precarious workers to say: enough! Let us take the street, not abandon it, to enforce our strength and our demands.

On March 29, all to the streets, all on strike!

Permanent Secretariat of the Confederal Committee.
National Confederation of Labour - CNT