By Carlos and Lali, delivery workers / Ro and Oriana, McDonalds workers´ representatives
The picture was ideal. An assembly of extensive national representation, with 18 provinces, the main areas of Greater Buenos Aires and the key cities of the province of Buenos Aires present. It also reflected a very broad social composition of the precarious sector: delivery services, fast-food workers, call-centers, public sector, contracted workers. In short: the diverse range of youth precariousness. But also, the presence of part of the best activism of the sector´s struggles was outstanding:
* Rappi, Glovo and Orders Now distributors. From the Greater Buenos Aires, but also an active representation from Córdoba and a self-convened sector that demands security measures in Santa Fe.
* McDonald´s workers stood out. The presence from several franchises was expressed, with delegates, the vanguard of the demands and the organization against this multinational. Also from Green Eat and other companies.
* It was important to have a delegation of workers from Wendy´s and KFC that occupied their premises and stopped work last week. A high point in the process struggle for wages and bonuses.
And of course, precarious workers from the Banco Provincia call-center in the City of Buenos Aires, precarious state workers from Patagonia and other provinces, domestic employees, therapeutic attendants and various other sectors. That is to say: a representative assembly of the entire country, of the global spectrum of precariousness and of the most dynamic sectors in struggle. With this context, we launched a new national organization: #DarVueltaTodo (Turn Everything Over).
One Working Class Without Borders
On July 1, the strike and day of struggle of delivery workers showed this movement´s international scope. The group we founded was born with that strong, essential identity mark: the international unity of precarious workers and the working class as a whole. Therefore, the start of the event featured greetings that galvanized the entire debate.
Dani, from the Spanish State collective, “Riders for Rights”, opened that moment of the event. She explained the combative character of her organization, the struggle against “associativism” in the form of “self-employment” with which companies want to avoid taking care of their workers, and obviously raised the need to strengthen all ties of international unity.
Then it was Tito Álvarez, spokesperson of the Transnational Network of Platform Workers, which groups unions and groups from various countries around the world. He clearly located the fight against platforms and their business use to exploit workers, explained how they managed to defeat Uber in Catalonia, and forced decent working conditions as workers for drivers, and also posed as a perspective the expansion of the Transnational Network by incorporating organizations like ours.
Finally, the greeting from Mexico, from Saúl, representing the organization “Not one less delivery worker,” was very moving. He asked for a minute of silence for the comrades on the front line, killed by COVID or state, entrepreneurial and union negligence throughout the world. Also, of course, he called for strengthening international coordination. His message was powerful.
Everything To Do
In the end, the assembly with hundreds of participants resolved a combo of measures to fight, organize and disseminate the debate:
* On July 20, develop a National Day of Struggle with mobilization to the Ministry of Labor in Buenos Aires and all its offices in the country, to demand state intervention to impose on employers all the conditions that we demand in delivery, fast-food and other sectors. Incorporate protests at emblematic fast food outlets and the demand for the leadership of the Pasteleros union to abandon its complicity with the employers.
* Promote the unity of the movement of precarious workers, coming together in Regional Coordination Committees to unite all the collectives, delegates and forces that operate in each region of the country and establish a National Coordinator of Precarious Workers.
* Participate and invite in workplaces to the International Conference on job insecurity and educational decline that the International Socialist League holds on July 25.
* Continue to demand justice for the delivery workers killed during the pandemic and join the demand for the appearance of Facundo Castro alive.
* Disseminate this new National Organization with a letter of presentation throughout the country, highlighting its unitary, combative, democratic and anti-employer nature to recruit hundreds of precarious workers to build this new tool.
Now, with these resolutions as a starting point, we begin a new stage: for the unity of the precarious movement, for all the rights that capitalism, governments and bureaucracies deny us. With a banner that identifies us: #DarVueltaTodo (Turn Everything Over).