29th January 2020
As Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity we express our deep solidarity with the call to the General Strike in South Basque Country on 30th January 2020 by the Social Rights Movement of the Basque Country, conformed by more than 100 social and trade union organizations, several of which are members of the Global Campaign.
The Social Rights Movement is a synthesis of the most deeply felt aspirations and demands of the working class and of broad popular sectors (women and men, young people, the elderly, migrants, prisoners, as well as the most marginalised and people with functional diversity…), in order to advance in the defence and extension of rights, in the face of the capitalist offensive unleashed to harden the conditions of exploitation.
This mobilization has received substantial support from the civil society of the Basque Country. 170 strike committees have been set up and more than 1,200 companies have joined the General Strike.
We stand in solidarity with the demands of social organisations and trade unions in the Basque Country, among them:
– A minimum salary of 1,200 euros
– A minimum pension of 1,080 euros
– To get 35 working hours per day, to better share out employment and wealth; to put an end to part-time work and allow a proper distribution of caring works.
– Narrowing all the gaps: Nearly 80% of part-time jobs are filled by women and they receive 13.8% less for each working hour than men. 69% of the population with the lowest pensions are women.
– Decent living conditions: 522,000 people are below the poverty line.
Neoliberal globalization has opened the doors for the savage exploitation of the world by the big economic powers. They have gradually taken over our lives and the planet by creating a blanket of impunity through the dismantling and systematic violation of laws and the signing of international trade and investment agreements, which award investors more rights than citizens. As a result, peoples’ rights have been systematically violated, the Earth and its resources destroyed, pillaged and contaminated, and resistance criminalized, while corporations continue committing economic and ecological crimes with total impunity. Driven by their imperative of maximizing profit, TNCs seek to pit workers from different regions against one another in what is a race to the bottom for the world’s working people.
The Strike of January 30th is a milestone to stop the process of precarity of living and working conditions implemented in the last decade and to start the way towards the rights of the people living in the Basque Country. The aim is to strengthen the agenda of the working people against the employers, to change the public policies and to assume the right to decide about our lives. The Strike represents an inspiring expression of Peoples resistance against the neoliberal model, and in the face of which the only option is to link the struggles across the world and build new forms of transnational solidarity.
For all these reasons, we support the January 30th General Strike in the Basque Country and call to express solidarity with it.
The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity is a coalition of 200 social movements, networks and organizations, as well as campaigns to denounce specific companies, active in different sectors, regions and countries. It’s is a peoples global structural response to unaccountable corporate power which provides facilitation for dialogue, strategizing, exchanging information and experiences, acting as a space for visibility of resistance and deepening of solidarity and support for struggles against TNCs.
Please disseminate widely: #U30GrebaOrokorra #HuelgaGeneral30E
