(The following article is from the March 16-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Unions affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) met in Lisbon in December to discuss the world financial crisis and advance a set of demands. The assembled WFTU affiliates set Wednesday, April 1, 2009 as an international date for workplace and community actions and demonstrations.

     Jose M. Oliveira of the SNTSF, the Portuguese national railway workers union, hosted the meeting, together with Jose Dinis from FEVICCOM (Ceramic and Glass Workers) and Augusto Praca of FESHAT,  the Federation of Agricultural, Food, Beverage Hotels and Tourism of Portugal. Forty delegates representing 25 countries and international organizations attended the Lisbon meeting, along with representatives from the ILO, the World Peace Council, and the World Federation of Democratic Women.

     George Mavrikos, head of WFTU, stated that, "This meeting is another piece of evidence that workers across the world are resisting and creating the conditions for massive struggles. The opponents of workers are not invincible. Invincible are the people who know how to fight for their rights."

     The meeting called for an "International Mobilization of workers and progressive forces of the world, demanding the crisis be paid by those who generated it and not by workers or peoples who are victims of neoliberalism."

     A statement from the meeting stressed that the working class and peoples of the world, victims of anti‑labor polices, are demanding deep changes to build, consolidate and defend the political, economic and social alternatives to capitalism and the neoliberal model of globalization. Only the united action of workers and progressive forces, it said, can prevent further exploitation and precarious work; win the redistribution of wealth and better wages; end child labor; block layoffs; defend social and labor rights; reduce working hours without reducing wages; strengthen trade unions; fight all forms of discrimination against women, youth, immigrants, etc.

     The meeting also called for more fundamental changes, including nationalization of banks and other strategic sectors such as energy, and placing food sovereignty under social control.

     The delegates demanded an end to wars, and no more funding to NATO and military weapons, with this money to be invested in the production sector for the creation of jobs and the development of the peoples. They urged the immediate end of military occupation and unconditional withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, Palestine and other Arab territories and Afghanistan, and full respect for sovereignty and self‑determination of the peoples.

     Formed in 1945, the WFTU has historically represented sections of the international trade union movement which orient on strategies of militancy and class struggle. At the most recent WFTU congress, which met in Havana in 2005, over 800 delegates representing organizations with 400 million members took part.