12th congress of the MST: resolutions

Together with the general orientation of furthering in the next period a strong focus on the workers’ movement and its struggles, with the objective of challenging the union and political leadership, which includes gaining activists as new militants for the party, the congress passed the following resolutions:

Solidarity with the Brazilian people in the face of the health and humanitarian catastrophe

Brazil has become the first country in the world in number of deaths due to Covid-19, with an exponential growth exceeding 350,000 deaths. Vaccination is taking place late, slowly and without any planning and the health system is collapsed. For all these reasons, the social and health crisis is a real humanitarian catastrophe. Bolsonaro’s denialist, reactionary and austerity policies are the main cause of this critical situation. Our comrades in Brazil have been demanding an alternative plan that guarantees the sanitary isolation of the population, mass vaccination to block the exponential course of this pandemic and social aid measures that guarantee the survival of the workers and popular sectors and a unified health system, among other measures. Therefore the congress resolves to implement internationalist initiatives of condemnation of Bolsonaro and his denialist policy, and solidarity with the Brazilian people, with actions on a date to be set by the national leadership in front of the Brazilian embassy and consulates in all provinces. This initiative took place on Wednesday, April 14.

May 12: International Nurses Day

Whereas: That May 12 is commemorated as International Nurses Day, declared in 1965 in honor of Florence Nightingale, precursor of professional nursing. That this year will be commemorated in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic, a multiplicity of conflicts in the health sector and that, as we placed in the documents, reports and debates of the congress, it is a priority national process for the turn to the dispute in the labor movement which is one of the axes of the orientation that we voted. That the nursing sector is the most dynamic of the health team in this process of struggle and organization, the one that suffers the most from the measures of austerity, job insecurity, exposure to risk and other structural problems of the health system. That May 12 is a reference date in the sector and an opportunity to strengthen our party work. The congress of the MST resolves: To carry out a national initiative for May 12 with preparation activities and promoting a central mobilization action in CABA for that day that will be determined by the party, Alternativa Salud and the organizations where we participate, and similar actions all over the country. Install the same with articles in Periodismo de Izquierda and in networks with photos and videos from hospitals and health centers, srpeading it widely. Promote adhesions in all health conflicts and union organizations where we participate. To transfer this initiative to the ILS so that they can discuss their participation from different countries.

National campaign of the health care sector

Whereas: That according to the voted orientation of turning to the workers’ movement the health sector is a priority at the national level. We are entering the second wave of the pandemic in the midst of conflicts in different provinces, many of them radicalized and which are part of a national process that will become more dynamic due to the social crisis, the salary cuts, the exposure to risk, the insufficiency in vaccination and the overload of the health system. That the national and provincial governments, far from taking social and sanitary measures such as those we propose, privilege the payment of the debt and the patents and profits of pharmaceutical laboratories. Therefore there is an opportunity to deploy a campaign to run with our alternative program. The Congress resolves: to launch a campaign with the main slogan Essential is the front line, not the IMF and the laboratories. To publish a specific central flyer, petitions and graphic campaign in networks, in order to support the turn to hospitals and health centers according to the orientation voted. To promote statements in all the organizations and sectors in struggle where we intervene. To program from the national and regional leaderships initiatives in order to capitalize the campaign for the development.

Resolution on vaccines and the pandemic

To support the resolution published by the ISL on this issue and to promote the campaign it proposes to carry out. Also to support the resolution in the same sense promoted by the FIT Unidad.

Resolution on the neighborhood youth

To organize in all the popular neighborhoods where we have work, the youth of the MST “Teresa Vive”, calling to organize and promote the struggle for all their demands.

Resolution against mega-mining

Whereas: That the capitalist project of the government of Alberto Fernández, supported by the whole political regime has as its nodal point the expansion of extractivism throughout the national territory to guarantee the capture of the dollars necessary for the payment of the fraudulent national and provincial foreign debts with the IMF and other vultures, and to continue favoring the corporations; thus demonstrating the incompatibility between their profits and the lives of the majorities and nature. That the mega-mining offensive in Chubut constitutes a laboratory for the realization of these objectives in collusion with the government of Mariano Arcioni, all the parties of the provincial Congress and the union bureaucracies. That in the last period we witnessed the historic struggle in Mendoza in which the people managed to stop the government and new confrontations are being prepared like in Río Negro and in the face of the possibility of new advances in San Juan and other provinces like Jujuy with lithium mining, etc. Resolved: To reject categorically the mega-mining offensive, giving continuity to the unconditional support to the struggle of the people of Chubut against zoning and promoting the project of second popular initiative, as well as in Rio Negro and all the plurinational territory. To also support, as part of the struggle against extractivism, the fight against the lithium business in several provinces of the country where it is being carried out.

Resolution on elections 2021

Whereas: That during this 2021, together with the struggle in the streets against the austerity plan in course, there will also be a strong political-electoral struggle against all the variants of the system and the capitalist regime. And that both from the government of the Frente de Todos and from the bourgeois opposition of Juntos por el Cambio, with the support of their like-minded media corporations, try to deepen the idea that they are the only two political options in the country. The 12th congress of the MST resolves: To summon the whole of the FIT Unidad to develop a strong political stance with the whole of our program of substance and alternative, to place ourselves as a third option independent from all the capitalist parties. And on the basis of the important unity of the left that we have built, to call to extend from the FIT-U this unity to all the anti-capitalist and socialist left forces, to social and independent referents, with the objective of not dividing the vote of the left, in the midst of a political-electoral struggle against all the forces of the system.