Introduction
Many billions of Euros
are being extracted from Europe’s vassal-debtor nations – Spain, Greece,
Portugal and Ireland – and transferred to the creditor banks, financial
speculators and swindlers located in the City of London, Wall Street, Geneva
and Frankfort. Under what have been termed ‘austerity’ programs, vast tributary
payments are amassed by ruling Conservative and Social Democratic regimes via
unprecedented and savage budget cuts in salaries, public investment, social
programs and employment. The result has been catastrophic growth in
unemployment, under-employment and casual labor reaching over 50% among workers
under age 25, and between 15% and 32% of the total labor force. Wages,
salaries and pensions have been slashed between 25% and 40%. The age of
retirement has been postponed by 3 to 5 years. Labor contracts (dubbed
‘reforms’) concentrate power exclusively in the hands of the bosses and labor
contractors who now impose work conditions reminiscent of the early 19th century.
To learn first-hand about
the capitalist crisis and the workers’ responses, I spent the better part of
May in Ireland and the Basque country meeting with labor leaders, rank and file
militants, unemployed workers, political activists, academics and
journalists. Numerous interviews, observations, publications, visits to
job sites and households - in cities and villages - provide the basis for this
essay.
Ireland and the Basque
Country: Common Crises and Divergence Responses
The Irish and Spanish
states, societies and economies (which presently includes the Basque country, pending
a referendum) – have been victims of a prolonged, deep capitalist depression
devastating the living standards of millions. Unemployment and
underemployment in Ireland reach 35% and in the Basque country exceeds 40%,
with youth unemployment reaching 50%. Both economies have contracted over 20% and
show no signs of recovery. The governing parties have slashed public
spending from 15% to 30% in a range of social services. By bailing out banks,
paying overseas creditors and complying with the dictates of the autocratic
‘troika’ (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European
Commission), the capitalist ruling class in Ireland and the Basque region have
undermined any possible investments for recovery. The so-called
‘austerity’ program is imposed only on the workers, employees and small businesspeople,
never on the elite. The Brussels-based ‘troika’ and its local collaborators
have lowered or eliminated corporate taxes and provided subsidies and other
monetary incentives to attract multi-national corporations and foreign finance
capital.
The incumbent bourgeois
political parties, in power at the beginning of the crash, have been replaced
by new regimes that are signing additional agreements with the ‘troika’ and
bankers. These agreements impose even deeper and more savage cuts in public
employment and a further weakening of workers’ rights and protection. The
employers now have arbitrary power to hire and fire workers at a moment’s
notice, without severance pay, or worse. Some contracts in Ireland allow
employers to demand partial repayment of wages if workers are forced to leave
their jobs before the end of their contract because of employer abuse. The
Spanish economy – including in the Basque country – is subject to a modern form
of ‘tributary payments’ dictated by the ruling imperial oligarchy in Brussels.
This oligarchy is not elected and does not represent the people it taxes and
exploits. It is accountable only to the international bankers. In other
words, the European Union has become a de facto empire – ruled by and for the
bankers based in the City of London, Geneva, Frankfort and Wall Street. Ireland
and the Basque country are ruled by collaborator vassal regimes which implement
the economic pillage of the electorate and enforce the dictates of the EU
oligarchy – including the criminalization of mass political protests.
The similarity in
socio-economic conditions between Ireland and the Basque country in the face of
crisis, austerity and imperial domination, however, contrasts with the sharply
divergent responses among the workers in the two regions due to profoundly different
political, social and economic structures, histories and practices.
Facing the
Crisis: Basque Fight, Irish Flight
In the face of the
long-term, large-scale crisis, Ireland has become the ‘model’ vassal state for
the creditor imperial states. The leading Irish trade union federation and the
dominant political parties – including the Labor Party currently in coalition
with the ruling Fine Gael Party – have signed off on a series of agreements
with the Brussels oligarchs to slash public employment and spending. In
contrast, the militant pro-independence Basque Workers Commission, or LAB, has
led seven successful general strikes with over 60% worker participation in the
Basque country – including the latest on May 30, 2013.
The class
collaborationist policies of the Irish trade unions have led to a sharp
generational break – with older workers signing deals with the bosses to
‘preserve’ their jobs at the expense of job security for younger workers. Left
without any organized means for mass struggle, young Irish workers have been
leaving the country on a scale not seen since the Great Famine of the mid-19th
century. Over 300,000 have emigrated in the past 4 years, with another 75,000
expected to leave in 2013, out of a working population of 2.16 million. In
the face of this 21st century catastrophe, the bitterness and
‘generational break’ of the emigrating workers is expressed in the very low
level of remittances sent back ‘home’. One reason the Irish unemployment
rate remains at 14% instead of 20-25% is because of the astounding overseas
flight of young workers.
In contrast, there is no
such mass emigration of young workers from the Basque country. Instead of
flight, the class fight has intensified. The struggle for national liberation
has gained support among the middle class and small business owners faced with
the complete failure of the right-wing regime in Madrid (ruled by the
self-styled ‘Popular Party’) to stem the downward spiral. The fusion of
class and national struggle in the Basque country has militated against any
sell-out agreements signed by the ‘moderate’ trade unions, Workers Commissions
(CCOO) and the General Union of Workers (UGT). LAB, the militant Basque
Workers Commission, has vastly more influence than their number of formally
affiliated unionized workers would suggest. LAB’s capacity to mobilize is
rooted in their influence among factory delegates, who are elected in all
workplaces, far exceeding all trade union membership. Through the
delegates meeting in assemblies, workers discuss and vote on the general strike
– frequently bypassing orders from central headquarters in Madrid. Direct
democracy and grass roots militancy frees the militant Basque workers from the
centralized bureaucratic trade union structure which, in Ireland, has imposed
retrograde ‘give backs’ to the multi-national corporations.
In the Basque country,
there is a powerful tradition of co-operatives, especially the Mondragon
industrial complex, which has created worker solidarity in the urban-rural
communities absent among Irish workers. The leading Irish politicians and
economic advisers have groveled before the multi-national corporations,
offering them the lowest tax rates, biggest and longest-term tax exemptions,
and the most submissive labor regulations of any country in the European Union.
In the Basque country,
the nationalist-socialist EH Bildu-Sortu political party, the daily newspaper
Gara, and the LAB provide mutual political and ideological support during
strikes, electoral contests and mass mobilizations based on class
struggle. Together, they confront the ‘austerity’ programs as a united
force.
In Ireland, the Labor
Party – supposedly linked to the trade unions – has joined the current
governing coalition. They have agreed to a new wave of cuts in social spending,
layoffs of public employees, and wage and salary reductions of 20%. The
trade union leadership may be divided on these draconian cuts, yet most still
support the Labor Party. The more militant retail workers’ union rejects
the cuts, but has no political alternative. Apart from support from the
republican-nationalist Sein Fein and smaller leftist parties, the political
class offers no clear progressive political program or strategy. [The Sein
Fein has made the ‘transition’ from armed to electoral struggle.] According to
the latest (May 2013) polls, it has doubled its voter approval rating from
under 10% to 20% due to the crisis. However, Sein Fein is internally
divided: the ‘left’ pro-socialist wing looks to intensify the ‘anti-austerity’
struggle while the ‘republican’ parliamentary leaders focus on unification and
downplay class struggle. As a result of its collaboration with the ‘troika’ and
the new regressive tax laws, the Labor Party is losing support and the
traditional right-wing party, Fianne Fail, which presided over the massive
swindles, speculative boom and corporate giveaways, is making an electoral
comeback – and may even return to power. This helps to explain why Irish
workers have lost hope in any positive political change and are fleeing in
droves from the perpetual job insecurity imposed by their elite: ‘Better a
plane ticket to Australia than a lifetime of debt peonage, regressive
bankruptcy laws and boss-dictated contracts approved by trade union chiefs who
draw six digit salaries’.
The Basque country’s
revolt against centralized rule from Madrid is partly based on the fact that it
is one of Spain’s most productive, technologically advanced and socially
progressive regions. Basque unemployment is less then that of the rest of
Spain. Higher levels of education, a comprehensive regional health system,
especially in rural areas and a widespread network of local elected assembles,
combined with the unique linguistic and cultural heritages, has advanced the
Basque Nation toward greater political autonomy. For many this marks the
Basques as a political ‘vanguard’ in the struggle to break with the neo-liberal
dictates of the EU and the decrepit regime in Madrid.
Conclusion:
Political Perspectives
If current austerity
policies and emigration trends continue, Ireland will become a ‘hollowed out
country’ of historical monuments, tourist-filled bars and ancient churches,
devoid of its most ambitious, best trained and innovative workers: a
de-industrialized tax-haven, the Cayman Island of the North Atlantic. No
country of its size and dimensions can remain a viable state faced with the
current and continuing levels of out-migration of its young workers. Ireland
will be remembered for its postcards and tax holidays. Yet there is hope as the
left republicans of the Sein Fein, socialists, communists and anti-imperialist
activists, join the unemployed and underpaid workers in forming new grassroots
networks. At some point the revolving doors of Irish politicos in and out
of office may finally come to a halt. Unemployed and educated angry young
people may decide to stay home, stand their ground and turn their energies
toward a popular rebellion. One consequential socialist leader summed it
up: “Deep pessimism and the influence of bankrupt social democracy and
imperialist ideology within the labor movement are very strong. As you
know we can’t start a journey other than from where we are”. The
determination and conviction of Irish trade union militants is indeed a reason
to hope and believe that current flight will turn into a future fight.
In the case of the Basque
country, the rising class and national mass struggle, linked to the legacy of
powerful co-operatives and solidarity based worker assemblies, provides hope
that the current reactionary regime in Madrid can be defeated. The ruling
neo-fascist junta (the ruling party still honors the Franco dictatorship and
military) is increasingly discredited and has to resort to greater repression.
With regard to the militant Basque movements, the regime has taken violent
provocative measures: criminalizing legal mass protests, arresting independence
fighters on trumped up charges and forcefully banning the public display of the
photos of political prisoners (called ‘terrorists’ by Madrid). It is clear
the government is increasingly worried by the strength of the general strikes,
the rising electoral power of the pro-independence left and has been trying to
provoke a ‘violent response’ as a pretext to ban the press, party and
program of the EH Bildu-Sortu and LAB.
My sense is that Madrid
will not succeed. Spain as a centralized state is disintegrating: the
neo-liberal policies have destroyed the economic links, shattered the social
bond and opened the door for the advance of mass social movements. The bi-party
system is crumbling and the class-collaborationist policies of the traditional
trade union confederations are being challenged by a new generation of
autonomous movements.
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2013 by AxisofLogic.com
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