On the 24th of October, the Independent Workers’ Union organised and held an important seminar marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of our affiliate organisation, the World Federation of Trade Unions. The discussion was opened by our President, Cristina Diamant, after which Dave Gibney elaborated on the radical and fighting history of the Irish trade union movement. His talk guided the audience from the days of the early combinations, which saw workers deported for unionising, to the tragic deaths of workers from unsafe in-house living conditions in the Camden Street Holocaust; from the establishment of IDATU (Irish Distributive and Administrative Trade Union) in 1901, which was the first to welcome women, to the resignation of Cissy Cahalane from the Congress Executive for its failure to support Republican hunger strikers, and the Dunnes Anti-Apartheid Strike.

This overview of the class-oriented movement was followed by a presentation from the PAME delegation on the foundation of the World Federation of Trade Unions. The presentation outlined the important historical and contemporary role of the WFTU since 1945.

The WFTU was established in an attempt to bring workers of all nations together, but it later split to ensure that workers in Western countries did not join forces with workers in the rest of the world to overthrow their exploiters, bosses, and capitalist masters.

Despite this challenge, and the social conservatism and pro-employer, pro-government orientation of British, French, German, Irish, and American trade unions, the WFTU maintained hundreds of millions of members across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe—continuing the noble fight against war, resource exploitation, and anti-people measures.

The presentation regarding the WFTU was followed by an overview of PAME (All Workers Militant Front) by George Perros, a member of PAME’s secretariat. George explained that PAME was founded in 1998 to reverse the stagnation of the Greek trade union movement, to challenge the closeness of union officials to management and their anti-worker approach, and to help workers reclaim their unions and union structures. By focusing on these tasks, PAME met with great enthusiasm from millions of union members and workers across Greece who opposed anti-worker deals and timid steps from their so-called leaders. In empowering workers, democratising unions, and encouraging action, PAME helped restore dignity to the workers’ movement—and the results in Greece have spoken for themselves.

From a handful of trade unionists, PAME grew to several million members across branches, sectors, and affiliated unions. PAME became capable of organising interventions in ports to stop the transport of bullets to Israel, to resist anti-people measures introduced by the Greek government through general strikes, and to prevent companies from enriching themselves through the exploitation of workers’ labour.

In their own words:

“What we want to do is change working class consciousness. Bring workers consciousness closer to a future that is in the opposite direction to what we live in today. Future without exploitation, poverty or war. Because we believe that everywhere in the world, workers produce the wealth.
But workers don’t enjoy this wealth. Only the few enjoy this wealth, billionaires and big businesses. The big problem is profit. all the imperialist powers want to take the wealth of countries from the people. This is why workers strike. That’s why employee demand is big, prices are high, exploitation is big and we have to put an end to all this. Only the working class can put an end to all this. History changes only when the working class makes it possible. The trade unions must have this goal to stop exploitation. Workers must live with dignity. And the working class must be the boss in every country. It’s not easy but not unachievable. And we want to do this. We’re optimistic, and we’ve decided to do this. We are many, we have the power, and the real power is in our own hands.
One of our comrades in Palestine we visited recently said our own hands are to create wealth, not to get dirty by making weapons. This is our direction, this is how we think we need to go forward. We cannot be unoptimistic. We won’t bow our heads. Our flag is the flag of the modern rise of the working class, and under this flag we believe we can make it. We need to be patient, persistent and with a plan.”

The National Executive Committee of the Independent Workers’ Union fully embraces this mission and hopes to bring it, to the fullest extent, to Ireland.

The workers’ movement in Ireland needs a strong, democratic, and principled workers’ movement founded on solidarity, camaraderie, and a mission to end exploitation. Our trade union will continue to organise, fight, and struggle against employer and government exploitation of the working class.

Victory to the working class!