Argentina

Solidarity with Brukman workers

Statement by the Bureau

Thursday 24 April 2003

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On April 21, 2003 the Argentine government savagely repressed 53 textile workers and almost 7,000 people who mobilized to surround the Brukman textile factory in solidarity and to contribute their effort to occupying it.

The Brukman workers occupied the factory 17 months ago as the bosses abandoned it. Since then they have managed it under their control, won back the clients, paid debts to public services unpaid by the bosses, repaired the machines and put them into operation. In little over a year and a half, they have become a symbol of dignity and the winning back of sources of employment, along with almost 150 other companies taken over by their workers.

The judge who ordered the evacuation said: "There is no supremacy of life and physical integrity over economic interests." This is the true reason for so much deep repression, because the workers defending their sources of work, threatened by the depth of the capitalist crisis in Argentina, end up opposing the sacrosanct principle of private property.

Workers of the taken-over factories in Argentina demonstrate every day that the companies can work without bosses, although the bosses cannot make them work without their workers.

The Fourth International condemns the evacuation and the repression of the workers of the Brukman textile works of Argentina.

The Fourth International calls on all the unions of the different countries to express their class solidarity and develop activities in support to workers of the Brukman textile factory in Argentina.

Long live the fight of the Brukman textile workers!

Solidarity with the factories taken over by workers in Argentina!