The multinational Bridgestone, after the fake crisis prevention plan approved by Milei’s government expired, carried out hundreds of dismissals of workers it had illegally suspended, exceeding 30% of the total workforce.
We are talking about the most powerful company in the world in the tire sector. It has just increased its global profits to 2,046 million euros and in Argentina it had millions in profits if we take into account the last three balance sheets, despite the accounting maneuvers of the last year. It has no crisis! It wants to take advantage of the recession generated by the government’s economic policy to attack workers, with layoffs and labor flexibility. And for this it needs to attack the union organization.
We cannot allow this! This is a serious situation for the union that we have recovered from the Wasiejko bureaucracy. We must fight, as we tire workers have historically done.
Following the call for a strike on Monday by SUTNA, the provincial Ministry of Labor, controlled by the Kicillof government, decreed a mandatory conciliation for 15 working days that prevents workers from taking action inside the plant. At the same time, it sent hundreds of police officers from the Buenos Aires province to intimidate workers fighting for their jobs who demonstrated this Tuesday at the factory gate in Lavallol, in the event organized by SUTNA.
The mandatory conciliation is “poisoned”: the vast majority of those dismissed do not return to their jobs, but will remain suspended outside the plant for the duration of the conciliation. This keeps those inside the plant divided from the illegally suspended colleagues, who number more than 400. And those inside will not be able to take any measures.
At Fate this Wednesday there will be a new hearing for the longest preventive crisis in history. It seems that the Secretary of Labor is under the command of Javier Madanes. And he wants to pressure us colleagues and force us to accept a new, more regressive and exploitative work system, while preventing us Fate workers from taking measures within the plant with a pseudo mandatory conciliation with no established end.
It is clear that the government is allowing employers to attack with massive layoffs, without complying with the minimum legal requirements and conditions, since they cannot demonstrate any crisis, and at the same time it is seeking to tie the hands and feet of the workers so that we cannot respond.
We are in very important times, not only for the tire workers and SUTNA but for the entire working class. We have to organize ourselves with all the strength of the union. To do this, it is necessary to quickly call a general assembly of the tire industry to vote on an immediate plan of struggle. And as a first immediate response, we propose carrying out a massive roadblock or a strong action in the street in a visible place to achieve a strong media impact with the participation of comrades from the 3 large factories of the union and calling on all the organizations that have been supporting us and those that want to join.
This will serve to strengthen the unity of the three factories, which, together with the greatest possible solidarity and support from the various fighting organizations that have been accompanying us in recent years, can allow us to develop the necessary strength to defeat this attack by the bosses and the government. We can defeat them as we did in 2022.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
