Since the beginning of the economic crisis, the CNT has defended the general strike as the main tool of the working class against the attacks carried out by the banks and the bosses.

We reject the negotiation where the unions called on the government to ease the labour reform after the general strike of March 29. In the same way we have rejected the approach of the so-called social summit, to eliminate only the most flagrant excesses of the PP government, maintaining the core of the economic and political system that has put us in this situation, as well as its attempts to divert and delay the social response with useless proposals like the demand for a referendum.

The hard social situation demands a strong response, one which will grow and continue, which will break the ties with the political and economic system in which it originated, which it benefits and which is complicit with it.

After months of hesitation, the CCOO and the UGT will call general strikes on November 14, dragged into it on the one hand, by increasing social unrest and mobilizations in the streets and on the other, by the continued anti-labor measures of a government at the service of financial elites and employers with no intention of conceding even the crumbs that allow institutional unionism to justify their role.

CNT has agreed to call a general strike for November 14 and we will do this in our own way, with our own demands. We say that this strike is necessary but is not sufficient and we call for it to go beyond the sterile and frustrating scenario of the institutional unions that people have become accustomed to.

On this day, ten years ago, on October 19th 2002, the founding Congress of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative was held in Belgrade.

In previous ten years ASI has intensively supported the organizing of revolutionary libertarian workers' movement. Apart from direct participation in workers' and student strikes and protests, we are regularly publishing our weekly bulletin “Direktna akcija” (Direct Action) and sustain active publishing activities. This year, as it has for the past eight years, our publishing-research body — Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) will be participating in The Belgrade Bookfare with the intention to make the theory and history of the workers' movement accessible to people, as well as to confront commercialization of culture, and support spreading and strengthening of progressive thought and radical social critique.

In June 2010 we have again filed for registration of Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative as a union organization, but because of the bureaucratic obstructions of the state this process is still ongoing. Since it's founding ASI has actively participated in the international workers' movement, and in 2004 it became a Section of The International Workers Association (AIT–IWA).

We can all feel on our own skin what the social conditions are like. Record breaking unemployment, minimal wages and spiraling rise of prices on one side, and unbelievably lavish life style of bosses and politicians on the other, is a picture of present day Serbia and the world. Because of this we are not inviting the workers to an anniversary party, but calling them to an organized class struggle! This struggle can not relay on yellow unions and political parties. It has to be without intermediaries, based on direct action against the interests of the bosses and the state, and direct-democratic — based on assembly decision making, without bureaucrats and unrecallable delegates, because only through such kind of struggle can fundamental improvements of the position of the workers be made, and foundations for a truly free society can be laid.

It was a general strike on March 29 in Spain, and further mobilizations were initiated by the CNT-AIT from May 29 to June 15. Later in August, and now in September the CNT is mobilizing. On September 26 there will be a 24 hour general strike in Basque Country and Navarra in which the CNT-AIT has convened with other unions (ELA, LAB, ESK, CGT, STEE-EILAS, Hiru y EHNE) and social movements.

In the rest of the state there has not been possible to make a general strike call, by the refusal of the majority unions (CCOO and UGT) to promote the strike, as they were forced to do on March 29. The CNT has called a Day of Action in solidarity with the strike in the Basque Country and Navarra and in defense of a general strike throughout the country.

The International Secretary of the CNT-AIT says in a call to the Secretariat and the IWA Sections that: “We consider this day (26S) very important to gauge the chances of exceeding the roadmap designed by the CCOO and UGT trade unions, who claim the government commitment to a call for a referendum on the bailout and failing on organizing a social consultation on it. CNT claims these are useless and delaying tactics about the necessary general strike call.”

Long live the CNT-AIT!

Long live the IWA!

Oslo, September 24 - 2012
IWA-Secretariat