neoliberalism

By Pramesh Pokharel - La Via Campesina, April 17, 2023

By staff - La Via Campesina, June 30, 2023

Latin America sows a great soul, who defended the rights of the peasantry, indigenous peoples and Mother Earth, founded the National Agrarian Confederation (CNA) and made the long-awaited Agrarian Reform in Peru a reality.

(Bagnonet, June 26, 2023) La Vía Campesina recognizes the enormous political, social and humanist legacy of our comrade Hugo Blanco, a Peruvian and internationalist, who died yesterday in Sweden. His militancy and commitment marked the organization of peasant farmers for agrarian reform in the 20th century, not only in Peru, but also throughout Latin America.

Hugo participated in the fight for the first agrarian reform in Peru, organizing peasants and indigenous people in the early 1960s in the semi-tropical zone of the department of Cusco, more specifically in the province called La Convención and in the district of Lares to the south of the country, where coffee, tea and cocoa are grown. He denounced the exploitation and slave labor experienced by the peasantry, who were forced to work free in days of up to more than 12 hours a day, including women and children.

He was sentenced by the Peruvian justice to the death penalty, which he managed to avoid due to a strong international campaign of solidarity, but he spent nearly 7 years in prison and had to live several years in exile as well. “When I entered the room to be judged, and saw my comrades after three years in prison, I yelled: Earth or Death! That was our slogan. They responded: We will win!” He commented in an interview conducted in 2018, and added, “some said that it was Hugo Blanco’s agrarian reform, but it was not Hugo Blanco’s agrarian reform, because when it happened I was already in prison, it was the peasantry in struggle as a whole that conquered the land.”

Throughout his militancy, Hugo understood that the struggle and the need for the organization was even broader, not only against the latifundio, but against neoliberalism, capitalism and transnationals. So he became a tireless defender and staunch critic of extractivism and the depredation of Mother Earth. He accompanied marches, walks, crossed and toured the entire country defending the rights and dignity of the peoples of the countryside and cities.

“In the past, the struggle was to have land, work and farm. Now that neoliberalism acts and fiercely attacks nature, our fight has changed to the defense of mother earth, of pacha mama, that is the fundamental fight of now. Before I fought to socialize the land, today I have to fight for the maintenance of the human species” he commented.

For La Vía Campesina, Hugo Blanco is today a native seed, with an enormous potential for life, which inspired and will continue to inspire many generations in Peru and in the world. His legacy and commitment will endure in the struggle, in the organization and in the collective memory, because ideas do not die, like seeds multiply, grow and bear fruit.

“There are men that fight one day and are good. There are others that fight for a year and are better. Some fight for many years and are very good. But there are those who fight all their lives: those are the essentials» Bertolt Brecht

By Susan Price, Rika Müller-Vahl, Jeremy Brecher, Ferron Pedro, and Luke Esoiritu
- Global Ecosocialist Network, June 18, 2023

By Patrick Bond and Steve Zeltser - Labor Video Projecte, March 19, 2023

Irene HongPing Shen, et. al. - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, March 13, 2023

By Mary Church, Craig Dalzell, Roz Foyer, Sean Sweeney, Mika Minio-Paluello, et. al. - Just Transition Partnership, March 8, 2023

An online conference organised by the Just Transition Partnership to set out why public ownership of energy production and infrastructure is an essential part of any plans to hit climate change targets.

This event featured experts on how the privatised energy system is giving us fuel poverty, soaring energy prices and profits; and failing to deliver a Just Transition as well as reviewing the publicly-owned solutions in key sectors, from local to national levels.

Introduction: Mary Church - Reclaiming our Energy introduction

By staff - Central Única dos Trabalhadores, March 2021

The defense of a trade unionism that fights for a fairer model of society for workers has always been a principle that guided the debates and actions of CUT Brasil. Over the years, the unionism of CUT-Brasil has understood that the defense of the environment and of a model of sustainable development is in the interest of the working class and this topic has become an issue of growing importance. The 13th CONCUT (National Congress of the CUT-Brasil) approved in its resolutions the defense of a just transition, advancing even further in the debate and struggle for a model of society that avoids the climate and environmental crisis and guarantees jobs and rights for the working class.

The booklet “Just Transition: a trade union proposal to address the climate and social crisis” comes at a time when the working class is facing a challenge of containing the unbridled advance of the destruction of the environment and the climate crisis, while defending democracy and its rights against attacks by capital and the extreme right. As the result of a partnership with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the booklet aims to identify the main specificities of the just transition agenda for CUT-Brasil and the Brazilian working class, in addition to spreading the debate among trade unions, leaders, workers and to strengthen the fight against the production model that exploits the poorest and destroys the environment and our future.

The model imposed by capital causes unemployment, poverty and hunger, at the same time that it destroys entire biomes and threatens to cause permanent damage to the planet, increasing the risks for the working class. For the richest, it is possible to pay for housing, health care and other diverse protections against the problems caused by the climate crisis, such as desertification, floods and pollution. For the working class, avoiding the climate crisis is a necessity for survival.

Although the topic of climate change has many technical terms, in this booklet we seek to use a familiar and accessible language for the entire Brazilian working class.

Read the entire statement (PDF).

By Yuri Samoilov - Workers Voice, February 28, 2023

Yuri Samoilov, president of the Independent Trade Union of Miners and the Kryvyi Rih regional sector of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU), is taking part in a series of meetings in eight European cities, at the invitation of the International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggle. His first presentation took place on Feb. 21 in Warsaw and was organized by the Polish trade union Inicjatywa Pracownicza. Check the report here. Major excerpts from his speech follow below.

This talk took place on the same day that President Joe Biden attended a meeting with leaders of NATO countries in Warsaw. Despite many words of support, Biden failed to deliver the tanks and the Patriot anti-aircraft batteries promised in December. In Moscow, Putin played the victim and said he would continue the war to annex the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in addition to Crimea, annexed in 2014. Faced with these facts, it is urgent and necessary to strengthen the international workers’ solidarity.

The Workers’ Aid campaign for Ukraine was launched at the fourth meeting of the International Labour Network for Solidarity and Struggles in the French city of Dijon in April 2022: https://litci.org/en/ilnss-4th-meeting-gathers-around-200-activists-and-celebrates-an-important-advancement/

In the same month, the first workers’ aid convoy was sent to Ukraine, where the “Dimensions of War” Conference was held on May 1 together with the Ukrainian organization Sotsyalnyi Ruh. The 800 kilograms of food, first aid kits and generators were handed over to the Kryvyi Rih Miners and Metalworkers Union: https://litci.org/en/may-day-in-ukraine-celebrates-workers-international-solidarity/

At the end of September, the Labour Network sent the second workers’ aid convoy with a ton of first aid kits and power generators to the town of Kryvyi Rih where they met with local unionists and activists. See the photo report: https://litci.org/pt/2022/10/14/sindicalistas-realizam-o-Segundo-comboio-de-ajuda-operaria-a-ucrania/ On December 17, the International Conference of the Workers’ Aid to Ukraine Campaign was held, with the participation of more than 200 activists from 23 countries. On this occasion, an international crowd-funding campaign was launched to help workers during the winter. Watch the video about the activity here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu5XQpVZXVY

Here are major portions of Yuri Samoilov’s speech at the meeting in Warsaw:

By Maristella Svampa, Trusha Reddy, Ashish Kothari, and Liliana Buitrago - Alan Fisher, February 14, 2023

By staff - People and Nature, February 13, 2023

“Clean energy transitions” by rich countries of the global north are producing “a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South”, states a manifesto published last week by an alliance of social and environmental organisations.

“This decarbonisation of the rich, which is market-based and export-oriented, depends on a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South, which affects the lives of millions of women, men and children, not to mention non-human life”, the Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition says.

Women, especially from agrarian societies, are among the most impacted. In this way, “the Global South has once again become a zone of sacrifice, a basket of purportedly inexhaustible resources for the countries of the North.”

As the rich countries secure supply chains for these “clean” transitions, the web of debt and trade agreements in which countries outside the rich world are caught is tightened.

I hope that social movements and the labour movement in the rich countries will not only sign the manifesto (which you can do here), but also – probably more to the point – think about and discuss what it means for us.