Against the truce, for an anti-capitalist solution
On August 22, combative unionism and the left took to the streets and Plaza de Mayo. We reject the truce of the PJ and the bureaucracy, and we advocate a solution to for the crisis to be paid by the capitalists. ANCLA and the MST were one of the two fundamental members of the mobilization.
The deepening of the crisis, a result of the defeat of the government, moved the country, still surprised by the magnitude of Macri´s defeat. But there was no doubt that this crisis will be paid by working people. In less than 24 hours, labor agreements that cost weeks of struggles were pulverized, leaving workers much poorer, while we financed the party of “the markets”.
There are no doubts about the responsibility of the corporations, the banks, the IMF and the defeated government, which was left on its own. With the devaluation, they marked they asserted their power before the repudiation of the people in the primaries, who not only rejected a government, but also the capitalist project of austerity and reactionary reforms (like the labour reform that we forced to be archived for the time being).
Two solutions
There are two ways to respond to such a mess. One is advocated by Alberto Fernandez and the Frente de Todos, who validated the devaluation as an advancement of the “dirty work”. With the union bureaucracy that told the people to calm down and not organize a strike, supporting Macri in order to guarantee a calm transition.
Another is advocated by combative unionism and the left, which raised our flags on the streets and the Plaza, saying that the crumbs that Macri gave us to decompress and the silence of Alberto are not a solution. Both want to remain under the orders of the IMF. We took to the streets to fight for a different solution, to break with the IMF so that the corporations pay for the crisis. We demand an end to the complicit truce of the PJ and the CGT, and the preparation of a national strike and a plan of struggle to impose this solution in favor of the working people.
The massive march of the 22nd, that took place in several cities around the country, demonstrated the need to mobilize, as reflected by the mainstream media, which was forced to stop the calls of the government and opposition to not to mobilize in order to “reassure the markets.” In this context, there were some controversies on the politics and the nature of this much needed action.
Some debates
In the positive framework of the massive mobilization, there were important debates among the organizations of the FIT-Unidad and within the Plenary of Combative Unionism (PSC). We agree on the emergency program and the general unemployment demand, but the other forces refused to raise the need to kick Macri out and advance the elections, but to a (free and sovereign) Constituent Assembly for the people to decide. Due to electoralist positions (by avoiding confrontation with the Kirchnerist electoral base, as the PTS has said), or economicist positions (PO and IS), the FIT-Unidad, the only unitary coalition of the left, did not demand an early departure of this government repudiated by the masses nor did it demand a democratic solution to respond to the political crisis.
The other important debate was about the type of action we needed. For us, a great political mobilization was necessary, putting the FIT-U on the front line with the PSC to become a strong alternative pole against the Macri-Fernández governance agreement. Unfortunately, the criteria of organising an action that, though important, was mainly social and union based, won. It was therefore insufficient to completely respond to the political character of the crisis and the uncertainty in the minds of the mass movement.
We think that diluting the left and “hiding it” in the background is a mistake, mainly in an action that does not emerge from a mass process of struggle or a union, but is clearly built around the labor organizations of the classist left, meaning the activists mobilized from some of the unions in which the left has influence. Leaders of the PO and its labor organization CSC argue that the rank-and-file of our unions mostly voted for the PJ. Precisely because of that, not raising the left with combative unionism means not disputing those sectors and not winning them to a classist and anti-capitalist solution. Limiting ourselves to a unionist and economicist position means giving up that dispute in advance.
Combative unionism cannot be neutral. It must struggle to the end; it must be democratic and not reproduce any of the old bureaucratic practices of the old leadership; it must be classist and go against the bosses, and it must have a gender perspective. But it must also be leftist, at the service of the construction of a political alternative of the workers so they do not have to choose a “lesser evil” and continue following Peronist variants.
How to continue
As we proposed from ANCLA and the MST in the act in Plaza de Mayo, we agree with our allies that the continuity of these actions is essential to stimulate a unitary mobilization during the presidential transition and strengthen it in the face of the austerity plan of the upcoming government. Organizing or demanding assemblies, open plenaries and meetings of activists, promoting the demand for a national strike and a plan of struggle. Taking the emergency program of the working class to every union and workplace. And strengthening and building the PSC to advance towards a greater unity of anti-bureaucratic activists. And strengthening the FIT-U, the left that unites. On that path we will march on Friday the 30th to the Ministry of Labour to demand, at the meeting of the Wages Council, the implementation of the emergency program we raise.
Guillermo Pacagnini