Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Car industry workers mobilise internationally in solidarity

Second International Automotive Workers Conference planned for 2020.

There are still six months to go before the 2nd International Automotive Workers Conference will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 19 to 23 February 2020. It will be self-organized and prepared and non-party affiliated. Interest in participation is growing worldwide.

Among others, colleagues from Tunisia and Morocco, where there is a growing automotive industry, have already confirmed their participation. In South Africa, the big militant metal trade union NUMSA has expressed its support for the preparation and conducting of the conference. Its representatives explicitly stated that NUMSA stands for the common international struggle of the workers.

In February, the workforce of Audi in Györ, Hungary, went on strike for a week and pushed through their demands in full, including an 18% wage increase. Congratulations! The strike at Europe's largest engine plant stopped production at Audi's main plant in Ingolstadt for a week. The 10,000 colleagues affected there by the loss of production stood in solidarity on the side of the strikers. This solidarity across location sites, corporations or countries, right up to the joint struggle, is the right way to international workers unity.

The rapid changes in the automotive industry with the transition to electromobility, further digitalization and the signs of a worldwide economic and financial crisis are linked to the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs, the attack on wages and the deterioration of working conditions. The workers are challenged to unite in opposition, to fight together and coordinated for their jobs and class interests. 

A draft for an international program of struggle of the automotive workers was released by the group coordinating the Conference last June.  

Our Party supports this international mobilisation and comrades will prepare a report on the history and subsequent destruction of the car industry in Australia.



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