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I have NOT read DW's posting where the Subj. line blames "Peronists" for the unspeakable murder of Mariano Ferreyra. And I have not done it not because I am a sectarian. I have not done it because that subject line implies a whole movement, most of whose members and organizations have repudiated the murder in unmistakably clear terms but also have expressed themselves in full solidarity with Mariano. Thus, it works for the enemy and not for the working class. The Peronist government, to begin with, has spurred the judges to instruct a lightning speed investigation. The Federal Police has been immediately set out of the instruction, probably under suggestion of the President herself. In a country where this kind of things are usually dimmed out by morose, long and nonconclusive action of both the police and the judiciary, we are already with at least one or two people accused of the murder. Both belong to the Unión Ferroviaria gang of thugs. But Hugo Moyano himself, in person, took good care of the defence of the workers at stake, and there is enormous pressure on the miserable leadership of this union, specially on its head, José Pedraza (a sold-out of Stalinst origin who had acted as a combative leader up to the moment when Menem destroyed the railroads: in that moment, he turned to the other side, allowed 81 000 of 90 000 workers in the Unión Ferroviaria to be fired, and started a "glamorous" life of golden wrist watches, houses in Miami, and so on in collusion with the bourgeois and imperialist new owners of what remained of the railroads). The basic issue at stake is what we know here as "tercerización". This implies that a large company sets up either an agreement with some small company or a ghost company made up of part of its own staff of workers to crack the working class by incorporating as many workers as possible to those companies, paying miserable wages and of course no social benefits at all. The railroad companies benefit from government subsidies to keep the tickets at a low price. Then, they share those subsidies with the "tercerizadas", those fake "companies". Pedraza and his people have set up many such companies and are part of the big swindle. They have kept themselves at the helm of the Union (which in the past had been one of the most combative in Argentina) by ANY -and I mean ANY- possible means ever since the destruction of the Arg railroad network. He is even the President of the company that runs the narrow gauge network in Argentina (to be fair, he has demonstrated to be better bourgeois than the bourgeois themselves: the Belgrano Norte passenger line, which the union took over because no private investor saw it interesting, happens to be the best managed one in the Greater Buenos Aires area!) The whole conflict, then, ran along the right of the members of a "tercerizada" to (a) be incorporated to the big company (the Roca Line, which serves the South of the Greater Buenos Aires area), and of course (b) not be, as they had been, fired by the tercerizada. Hugo Moyano himself, even though the union activists in the tercerizada are strongly and even raucously anti-Peronist and anti-Moyano, declared on TV and in public that he was COMPLETELY IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORKERS IN THE COMPANY, and made it sure that a good arrangement be obtained in as soon as possible, with direct intervention of the Ministry of Labor. There are lots more of things to say. Those interested, may find it useful to have a look at the many postings on the Reconquista Popular mailing list which broach the issue, including a declaration by my own political party, which bears the title "EL QUE MATA A UN TRABAJADOR MATA A TODOS LOS TRABAJADORES", that is "he who kills a worker kills all workers".. And, finally, comrades, please stop calling the Partido Obrero "trotskyist". The great revolutionary Lev Davidovitch Bronstein does not deserve such an insult. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
