EUROPA

Strike Meeting Act II “Europe, social and transnational strike”

Call for the plenary assembly in Rome, 15th of February, towards a transnational strike and Blockupy demo on 18th of March. The third axis of the meeting will be a transnational plenary assembly about “Europe, social and transnational strike” presenting this perspective of connecting struggles and organizing the Blockupy demo of 18th of March.

The social strike of November 14, 2014, was organised by a wide coalition that placed at the centre of Italian movements’ political initiative the issue of strike as a way to organise and struggle against precarity in labour and life. It was not just a matter of fighting against yet another neoliberal reform of the Italian labour market: since the beginning, we were well aware of the fact that we were facing a European challenge. It is indeed clear that austerity policies, as much as the new ‘growth mantra’, are part of a transnational system of production, valorisation, attack to social rights and control over the movement of women and men within and across the borders of the European Union.

The process culminating with the 14N social strike was based on three main demands, interconnecting a variety of struggles: 1) European minimum wage; 2) European basic income and welfare; 3) no more unpaid work. We now feel we have to take a further step, and start laying the ground to organise the struggles of permanent workers, precarious workers, intermittents and unemployed persons beyond the national level. This also by connecting such struggles with those ongoing in the sphere of access to and management of services, with the constituent practices built by the struggles for the urban commons, with the experiences of workers self-management and new mutualism, with the struggles against speculation and privatisation.

Europe is a diversified space but also one where centralised policies and global productive chains make any response purely limited to the national or institutional level ineffective. Taking action in a way that can keep these different levels together is the challenge ahead of us. The new xenophobic forces of the right already have a project for Europe, based on racism and a return to petty sovereignties. However, we believe that a new wind can now start blowing in Europe – with the Greek elections speaking of that. But we also believe that no election can in itself be enough to accumulate the strength needed to contrast both the Europe of competitiveness and a transnationally organised production.

Europe is the minimum horizon within which we should imagine our struggles and their expansive potential. This is why, on the basis of the social strike experience and of the debates already ongoing within European movements, we wish to discuss the difficulties and potentials of a transnational strike. A strike that should articulate demands and forms of organisation beyond national borders, so as to accumulate the power we need to attack those who use borders to make profits. Not that we wish to ‘export’ the social strike model: Europe is of course a space of differences, marked by many diverse organising experiences. Yet, we would like to discuss how to create devices that can be up to the present scenario and help us build political initiatives of a truly transnational nature, starting from the mobilisation against the ECB organised in Frankfurt by the Blockupy coalition on March 18, 2015.

Cross your arms to cross the struggles! Unite in the strike!

(*the assembly will be held in English)

Here the text on the Social Strike Blog