Solidarity with the Striking Workers in Europe and Student and Worker Walkouts in the US this September and October

Passed by the Socialist Party National Action Committee, August 31, 2010

Since May of this year, workers in Greece, Italy, France and Spain have organized increasingly large strikes. In Europe, just as in the United States, workers are confronted with budget cuts, union-busting, and labor law ‘reforms’ that favor the rich. In Spain, labor unions are organizing a general strike on September 29th to coincide with a meeting of European finance ministers on September 29 in Brussels. It is expected that militant actions in other countries will also take place on this day.

Workers’ organizations and individuals in Europe have been calling others to help build September 29 into a day that will begin to awaken a response by global workers to austerity and attacks on our rights.

In the United States students and workers have called for a repeat of last year's mass actions and students walk-outs. On October 2nd and 7th actions are being called to stop budget cuts and other regressive measures which balance budgets on the backs of students, the poor and union workers.

We stand with the European workers and our fellow workers and students in the United States, raising our fists in defiance this September and October.

As socialists, we must reject the latest onslaught of neo-liberal attacks on students’ and workers’ rights, working conditions, social services for our youth, the elderly, and people living with disabilities.

Inasmuch as we call on the US and European governments to immediately halt austerity plans that are killing our people, we also remind our sisters and brothers in the movement that we cannot settle for reforms – we must reject capitalism as a whole. Just as globalization has opened borders to exploitation, we must stand united for the transformation of our societies from the rule of the wealthy few to the radically democratic governance of the collective wealth of the many.

Together we recognize that our politics and our approaches to this mass strike ought to reflect the open, transparent and democratic qualities that are prerequisites for genuine socialist democracy. It is necessary to show unity in action as well as theoretical, tactical, and political distinction from reformist parties and labor union bureaucracies.

With one voice, American and European workers, students and all oppressed by the capitalist system must rise up and demand an end to the war on workers, an end to the imperialist occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq; and an end to capitalism’s war on humanity, thus giving substance to the words: Workers of the world, unite!