Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Europe's workers fighting back.

Socialist Resistance no2  |  page 24

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

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HILE the firefighters have emerged at the centre of a new round of trade union militancy in Britain, workers in other countries across Europe are also taking action to challenge job cuts, privatisation and ausIn Portugal, the trade unions have called a general strike for December 10 to fight the austerity police:

Germany is facing the prospect of a series of public sector strikes over pay called by the giant Verdi union, which covers public services, the financial sec tor and the media. And drastic new cuts in health

In France, public sector workers have already staged a generalised one-day stoppage against privatisation, while air traffic controllers and lorry driv ers have staged disruptive stoppages in pursuit of

And in Italy Fat workers have been staging marches, stoppages, and blockading airports in Milan £20 (other overseas. For more details simply fill in this coupon, ticking the appropriate box

I enclose a donation of £.... Age ... Phone ... emai and Sicily in their campaign to halt plant closures in the floundering car giant.

Even the normally sleepy Switzerland has beer rudely awakened by a one-day national strike by 13,000 construction workers fighting for the right te retire at 60 - the biggest industrial action since 1947.

porkers are being forced to fight back as the bosses seek to strengthen their hand, with an expansion and reinforce ment of the European Union.

Against the capitalist alliance we need a socialist alliance uniting those prepared to fight in defence of the working class and the oppressed

With this visibly growing spontaneous resistance to capitalism and neo-liberalism, whether implemented by openly right-wing goyernments like France and Italy, or by so-called "third way" socia democrats in Germany and Britain, the need for socialist policies and perspective, for internationalist links and solidarity, is greater than ever.