Red and black flags draped from the balconies and 500 people filled the Verdi Theater in the heart of La Boca. The image called to mind another time when workers' congresses were frequent in this Buenos Aires neighborhood. The Argentinian Regional Workers' Federation (FORA in Spanish) turned 110 last May 25 but the celebration never looked back nostalgically on the good old days – it demanded instead the rebirth of revolutionary unionism.
For more than four hours the half a thousand workers who had come from all over the country reviewed the organization's history and analyzed the future perspectives of the current struggle. The FORA's practices' applicability and legitimacy can easily be found in the union-dictatorship of the CGT, a faithful servant to the bosses, an organization whose response is further and further removed from what the workers expect.
Past and present actors from FORA presented from different positions the keys that allowed this 100 year old organization to write some of the most brilliant pages in the Argentinian workers movement. There was also an analysis of the possibilities of action coming into view after the important restructuring process the new generations have brought to bear, turning FORA into a steadfast tool for the workers to wield in the struggle for their emancipation.
The event, with the presence of Carlos Martín, CNT Spain activist and delegate from the IWA, gathered together members of all the Resistance Organization Federation as well as sympathetic anarchist groups that showed their support for the union organization, proud to be the only one that has stayed true to its ideals and that is determinedly beginning to grow again in Argentina.
Press Secretary,
Federal Committee FORA
May 26, 2011