[personal translation by Néstor Gorojovsky] March 8, 2001 RESOLUTION BY THE CENTRAL CONFEDERAL BOARD WE WORKERS WILL FACE THE PROFUNDIZATION OF THE NEOLIBERAL ADJUSTMENT WITH A PROFUNDIZATION OF STRUGGLE It is already more than a decade that we are struggling in the streets of our country against the model of neoliberal adjustment imposed by Menem-Cavallo. We have always claimed that this model not only was going to generate a degree of social exclusion unprecedented in the history of the Argen tineans, it was also going to produce the almost complete liquidation of the national patrimony, an explosive increase in the foreign debt, and the generalized deindustrialization of the country. We also stated that the currency board system, in combination with a complete aperture of the economy was unescapably taking us to the loss of our foreign markets, to a rise in joblessness, to the reduction of wages, and to the destruction of the domestic market. The current administration promised a change. They lied. They profoundized the model still more: Brutal tax rises (_Impuestazo_), Law imposed wage reductions, reactionary reforms to the labor code, violation of retirement rights, bribery, corruption, flexibilizatión of the workers, a rise in une mployment and underemployment, absence of an effective social protection. They forgot their so proclaimed "ethics", and they rehearsed the worst Menemist tradition. They trampled on the Constitution, and made use and abuse of the authoritarian decrees of need and urgency. We workers stood, arms crossed, we did not give up, and we keep confronting the model as well as the Administration's hypocrisy. We warned, during the mobilization against the reform of the labor code of February 24, 2000, that no spurious agreement would hide the betrayal to the popular mandate and subjection to the IMF. Since March 16th, when the new leadership took office, the CGT =in a continuation of the struggles of the previous decade- made its compromise with the workers and the Argentinean people twice as strong. Thus, we resisted -mobilized always- the labor code reform, we were brutally repressed, we denounced the most shameful mechanism used in the Senate to vote favorably laws that are harmful for millions of Argentineans, we repudiated the IMF imposed policies on May 31st, when 100,000 fellow countr ymen answered our call in the largest global mobilization against the institution that is the badge of this perverted model, we mobilized against the wage cut (September 6) and against the economic policy (october 11), we convened and pushed forward the massive strikes of May 5, June 9 and Novem ber 23/24, and we accompanied evry protest and demonstration by the unemployed, the retired, and the struggling workers the country over. At the same time, however, we offered the Administration alternative propositions and alternative projects, in the realm of the economic as well as in that of labor relations, in health, in the fields of the institutional and the social, with a clear national and popular contents, without receiv ing a single answer. We made active part in social concertation with the sectors and organizations of industrial production, of agriculture and trade, with social and labor organizations within the Board of Consensus proposed by the Church, which the Government also dismissed. De la Rúa, insensitive to the voice of the people, made the same measures deeper, and as an unescapable consequence of the model brought the country to default. It was at this moment when the creditors invented the famous "shield" as a magical solution, when in fact it was just a mechanism to ha ve the international financial usury cashing the money that the Argentinean people would go on paying. The false expectations that a reactivation of economy and a growth in employment would be obtainde by this method vanished in less than one month. Now, they have pulled the mask off. The Administration expresses the model. And they have installed the crudest version of the orthodoxy: López Murphy and the Talibans of the market, the FIEL fundamentalists. We Argentineans know them very well. They are the same ones who together with Martínez de Hoz and the military dictatorship broke the law in 1976 and began, genocide included, the assault against national and popular interest. These are the same ideologues who, all along these years, managed to impose reductions of wages, massivelayoffs, the destruction of social security and of labor organizations, as well as the reduction of the sovereign State, the ellimination of constitutional rights and guarantees, an overall we akening of democracy, and brought on us this actual social genocide that has been imposed on the Argentineans of today. They represent the purest essence of this model of savage capitalism. That is why we can clearly state that clowns are not enough any more. The circus owner has had to hold the helm in person: the IMF, the usury of financial capital, and their most faithful local sepoys: FIEL. The situation of the country does not admit a single more adjustment. And the Administration still insists. The accounts of this model can't come to a close, not even with the repression that they are already preparing. The Argentinean People does not give in, nor does the CGT falter. It is a lie when they say that there is no alternative. They exist, but they are antipodal with the interests of financial usury and corruption. Today, our people has no capacity to consume, the industries cannot manufacture, the traders cannot sell, the farmers cannot produce, employed, unemployed and retired workers cannot buy. They have jibarized the country, now they want to destroy the homeland. It is essential to put the Argentinean economy in motion. This implies a reactivation of the domestic market, and the generation of employment before we remain devoid of everything. In order to do this, we need an increase in consumption through a shock that must be at the same time redistributi ve and of demand by means of immediate subsidization of 1,000,000 unemployed household heads, a rise in wages and basic retirement wages, all of this financed by a tributary reform which will elliminate subsidization to the monopolic companies of privatized public services and modify the regress ivity of the system. A progressive reduction in the Value Added Tax and a strengthening -by way of tariffs and para-tariffs- of our national production must accompany these measures. All of this, in one year, would imply a growth of 10% in the GDP, and the creation of 1,000,000 stable workplaces . Everyone knows that all the above is possible, but that requires political will and national vocation. It is necessary to think of the Argentinean people and in the Homeland we all deserve. We must stop kneeling down in front of those from abroad. We must change the model, and build the Nation anew. On this road, we compromise all our strength, and we make sure to anyone who wants to hear that we shall struggle until we obtain our goals. In view of all the above, the Central Confederal Board, after remembering the compañera Eva Perón and all the compañeras who gave their life to the cause of our homeland, in this International Day of Women, decides: 1.- To declare the state of Alert and Mobilization 2.- To further deepen the Struggle Plan, allowing the Steering Committe to establish the date of an Active National Strike 3.- In the same sense, to ratify the decissions made by the Steering Board, namely: a) Rally in repudiation of the military coup of March 24th at 25 years of its realization, and in hommage to every worker murdered and disappeared, and jailed under the military dictatorship, to be held on March 22nd at 3 P.M. in front of the Monument to Labor, Paseo Colón and Independencia, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. b) To mobilize the CGT together with all the remaining organizations that are calling for the central rally on March 24th c) Mobilization repudiating the ALCA (Free Trade Agre ement of the Americas), during the presence in Bueos Aires of the Ministers of Trade of the countries that may potentially become its members (april 5 and 6) 4.- To promote the constitution of a multisectoral board where every sector from manufacture, agrarian production, commerce, services, cul ture, education, labor, political, religious and social leaders, and all those who are aggreded by this economic system can develop and strengthen the alternatives to this model of social exclusion social and national destruction. Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
