A contribution of the IWW Innsbruck
Repression against union work? Imprisonment of trade unionists?
We know that in Austria, if at all, as historical anecdotes.
Everything seems peacefully structured. There are forms and guidelines for everything – including strikes and labour disputes. And it goes like:
Please tell the works council. They seek the permission from the ÖGB. Which, in turn, often refuses to go as far as they could, especially when the SPÖ is part of the government.
And if this all is through, then please seek for a date which is convenient for the industry. Maybe in times of the annual trials for the collective agreement? That’s a momentum where the industry is expecting it 😉
There is already a massive repressive momentum in conducting labour struggles this way – which is just not visible at first glance.
The “pacified class war”, as especially SPÖ and ÖVP like to call it. The by them so-called “Burgfrieden” (“Castle Peace”)…No way!
The years of Austro-fascism, Nazi-fascism and war in the 1930’s and 1940’s, have crushed a militant workers movement! Seventy years of social partnership have made the sustainable reconstruction of such a movement enormously difficult and repeatedly destroyed it. The annual trials for the collective aggreements should convey us that there are common interrests between the employing and the working class. But labour struggle is and remains class war! And this is not negotiable at round tables.
That is why we as IWW have been building up structures in Austria for almost ten years now.
As for the working class, class war is not once a year in the trials for the collective aggreements. For the working class – Class War is every fucking day! And it is not only related to the workplace. Which is why our understanding of an organization of the workers, naturally goes beyond the reality of the workplace.
The trade union is us! The working class! Not the paid civil servants. They are henchmen of the opressive capitalist system!
And this is why it is important to address today – on the international day of political prisoners:
Being imprisoned for detention prior to depertation. Being imprisoned because you can not pay fines and administrative penalties. Being caught between several jobs that give you just enough money to live, and the care-work at home. Being trapped between authorities, shuffling responsibilities back and forth until you’re exhausted and burned-out, desperately fragmented. Being trapped in prison-like, isolated so-called “return centers”. Where you get forced daily to “go back to your country”, because you can not be legally deported.
This is the daily reality of the working class in Austria!
That’s why we are here today! In solidarity with all prisoners of the working class! In Austria and worldwide!
Whether in the Philippines, India, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, Kurdistan, Diyarbakir, Turkey, Russia, the EU, Albania, Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria, Congo, Chad, Sudan, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico, Chiapas, Haiti, Guantanamo, the USA.Solidarity can only be our strongest weapon if it does not demand something in return.
When it crosses industrial, nation-state and cultural boundaries.
If we have a class consciousness.
Solidarity forever!
We are not all – the prisoners are missing!