----- Original Message ----- From: SolidNet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2000 11:04 PM Subject: WPB: Oil crisis and struggle for the purchase power. SolidNet The purpose of the Solid Net ( Solidarity Network ) is to inform on the activities as well as the ideological and political views of different Communist and Workers� Parties on National and International issues. All articles in the SolidNet are the responsibility of the authors and in no way commit this Web Site. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, http://www.solidnet.org ========================================================== WPB: Oil crisis and struggle for the purchase power. ------------------------------------------------------ From: Workers Party of Belgium, Tue, 10 Oct 2000 www.wpb.be, [EMAIL PROTECTED] =========================================================== Message from Belgian Trade-unionists to the International Conference of Unions Solidarity against the Capital. Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France, 29.09 - 01.10.2000 Oil crisis and struggle for the purchase power. 1. We salute the struggles carried by the workers of the world against the increases of the oil prices which strike them head on. This new oil crisis creates a justified revolt of the masses and a will to fight for the purchase power and against the misery. 2. The current oil crisis is different from the ones of 1973 and 1979. It is mainly caused by a bunch of oil Monopolies (Totalfina, BP, Exxon, Shell...) which have instituted an unprecedented grasp over the markets and which get fabulous profits, thanks to the exploitation of the oil resources, thanks to the speculation and to the kindly protection of the imperialist States. The oil multinationals have got more than 21 billions of dollars of profits during the first semester 2000. 3. These last 10 years, these States have invested hundreds of billions of dollars to assure the complete hold of the oil monopolies on the world resources and to militarily crush all the states which could threaten the control of resources, of the supplying roads or of the future exploitations. Under the leadership of the US, the armies of imperialism have led a war for oil against Iraq. The wars in the Middle East, in the region of the Caspian Sea, in Caucasus and in the Balkans, fomented by the NATO countries, have for main reason the control of the energetic resources and of the markets by the world imperialism, under the leadership of the US. Entire peoples are terrorized, strangled, plundered: from the arab world to Colombia, from Nigeria to Indonesia. 4. The militant union movement must coordinate itself to better initiate and lead the struggle against the dictatorship of the monopolies which rule the world and the imperialist states which are at their service. 5. The preservation of the purchase power and the improvement of the living standard of the working masses must be done by an immediate increase of the salaries, of the retirement and social allowances, integrating automatically and integrally the increases of the living costs. Specific measures must be taken with respect to: * the oil companies, by the compulsory decrease of the prices for the heating oil and petrol. * all the capitalists, by increases of the salaries to incorporate the increase in the energetic products. * the State, by the suppression of the indirect tax on the heating products which are products of first necessity. 6. This oil crisis proves one more time that the policy of privatization and of deregulation applied by the various bourgeois parties in all the capitalist countries leads to a catastrophe for the workers. We oppose the attacks suffered by the public services. We demand that the whole sector of energy passes under a public status. 7. Immediate and massive investments in the public transportations must assure a free transportation and an assured mobility for everybody. This and all elementary social needs in matter of health, education, lodging must be taken in charge by the capital and the fortunes, by a reinforcement of the taxes on profits and big fortunes. 8. For us, this fight is placed in a vision of a socialist society, where the ruling class is the one which produces the richnesses and where the engine of the economy is not the hunt for profits of the monopolies but the satisfaction of the needs of the people. *End*
