From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CEOSL INFORMATION BULLETIN --------------------------------------------------- Communications Department Tarqui 785 y Estrada, Sexto Piso Quito - Ecuador Tel. Numbers: 522511 - 506723 Fax: 500836; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------- WORKERS AND POPULAR MOVEMETS ARE NOW UNDERTAKING MASS-ACTIONS THROUGHOUT ECUADOR Jaimie Arciniega, the President of the Ecuadorian Confederation of Free Labour Organizations (Confederaci�n Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Sindicales Libres, CEOSL), has declared that popular organizations and unions throughout Ecuador are organizing themselves into Permanent Assemblies whose main purpose is to coordintate the diverse protest actions taking place across the nation. Arciniega, as CEOSL's leader, has declared that the workers tied to the Unitary Front, the Patriotic Front, the oil workers, the electrical worker unions and other organizations, have jointly decided to reject the government's decision to freeze the assets of FILANBANCO's clients and to disallow any further abuses of ordinary Ecuadorians as a result of the government's incompetent handling of the national financial system. He also added that the popular forces are demanding that those responsible for the collapse of FILANBANCO and for the corruption that pervades the national financial system be held accountable for their crimes. Arciniega stressed that the FUT, the Patriotic Front and the Popular Front will undertake joint demonstrations across the country on August 8-9 (2001) in order to protest against the politicies of hunger and corruption being implemented by the current government under the guise of neoliberal reform. Among the other actions taking place on those days, Arciniega highlighted the nation-wide strike being organizaed by UNE (the national teacher's union), work stoppages by the United National Union for Social Security Workers, the planned actions of the Front for the Defense of the Electrical Sector, the blockades and mobilization of the United Federation of Campensino Social Security Affiliates, and the diverse actions prepared by a host of other unions and popular organizations throughout the country. All of these planned demos will take place in the coming days, leading up to the large-scale National Unitary Assembly of the Ecuadorian People to be held on August 18 (2001), which will convene at the Association of Electrical Companies site in Quito, where the popular movement will decide on the best means and tactics of bringing the popular struggle with the government to a head. Arciniega also underlined the important fact that the afformentioned organizations have also demanded that the government immediately meet the demands put forward by Ecuador's doctors, health professionals, workers, public service employess and the indigenous and campensino organizations that have been staging almost daily protests across the country over the past few weeks. He stressed, with equal conviction, that the selling-off of public sector electrical companies will not be allowed, because the national economy will be harmed as a result of such measures and, furthermore, that the popular forces throughout the country will continue their struggle to reverse the disastrous IESS-law designed to privatize the Ecuadorian Institute for Social Security, recently approved by the National Congress, because it threatens the social security benefits of many Ecuadorians. Jaime Arciniega PRESIDENTE DE CEOSL _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
