Greetings to the working class movement and to the workers, whose example, courage and determination inspired the struggle of other sectors and who, when everything seemed inevitable and when others were folding their arms, were present - in the workplaces, the shopfloors, the streets - and were resisting and fighting back, asserting themselves as the great driving force of the mass struggle.
Special greetings to the broad Trade Union movement and to the great Trade Union central of the Portuguese workers, CGTP – Intersindical Nacional.
Its solid principles and goals, its firm class orientation, its capacity to congregate, to unite and mobilize – these asserted CGTP as the most decisive mass organization in resisting the Aggression Pact and the policies of exploitation and impoverishment. CGTP was one of the key organizations in ensuring the social, political and electoral defeat of the PSD/CDS Government, which paved the way to a new phase of the country's political life.
This new phase places renewed demands upon the Broad Trade Union Movement and upon the workers, first and foremost that of intensifying the struggle to restore and achieve rights and to ensure solutions to the most pressing problems.
These renewed demands come at a time when many are appealing for conformism and the so-called «social peace» or for the bear hug of the so-called «social dialogue» and «concertation» - appeals and maneouvres to which the class- based Trade Union movement responds with the struggle in each sector, company and workplace, for the right to collective bargaining, for wage increases and an end to precarious work relations, winning from below what they try to take away or curtail from above.
When the usual culprits are getting ready to fulfill their historical mission of betrayal and to hand over on a silver platter workers' rights, the broad-based Trade Union Movement responds to divisionism with the workers' organization and unity based on concrete goals.
At a time of intensifying ideological struggle, with the appearence of self-proclaimed innovative and «modern» structures, when attacks are unleashed against class-based trade-unionism, with a view to depriving it of its nature and integrating it into the system, the mass Trade Union Movement responds with an integrated action in the companies and workplaces, with unionization and a renewal of structures.
At a time when many proclaim their desire for the demise of the class-based Trade Union Movement, branding it as outdated, out of touch with the workers and especially the younger generations of workers, there you have the necessary response: over 120 thousand workers, 20 thousand of whom are under 30 years of age, have joined the class, united and mass Trade Union Movement, during the past four years. One hundred and twenty thousand new Union members who bring more strength to the organized struggle, more Trade Unionism to the workplaces, greater demand for trade union militancy, for the unity of the workers and their struggle.
This is the best response to the old, but re-branded as new, theories of surrender.
The development of the action and struggle for demands, to defend, restore and win new rights, for an overall increase in wages, with special emphasis on the national minimum wage, opposing precarious labour relations and the deregulation of working hours, demanding shorter working hours, demanding the restoration of the right to collective bargaining, among other goals: this is the response, this is the way forward, this is the everyday struggle that is waged where it is hardest, but more decisive – in the companies and workplaces.
A struggle that knows advances and retreats, resistance and victories, a struggle in which the braod Trade Union Movement will always find the Communists in the front ranks of those who take part in it.
If it is in the interest of the workers that their Trade Union Movement preserves and deepens its united, class-based, mass, militant and demanding characteristics, the best guarantee that this will indeed be the case is the participation and influence of Communists in the Trade Union Movement.
This is the guarantee that unity with all will be built around the workers' class interests, regardless of political and ideological choices or religious beliefs.
This is our attitude and practice. And it is also for this reason that the workers trust, recognize and elect Communists for their structures.
This is our commitment. What drives us is the need to strengthen the Trade Union Movement; the integrated action in the companies and workplaces; more unionization and stronger grassroots organizations; greater Trade Union militancy; carrying out the necessary re-structuring, so as to ensure conditions for greater Union activity; contribute to the workers' unity, mobilization and struggle.
The United Trade Union Movement, with its own goals, action, autonomy and identity, that were recently reaffirmed at the 13th CGTP Conference, continues and will continue to be, against the wishes of the bosses and of the right-wing policy, a decisive social force, that mobilizes and drives forward the mass struggle against big capital and for a break with the right-wing policies.
This is a struggle for progress and workers' emancipation, for the urgent and necessary patriotic and left-wing alternative, a struggle that, when waged every day, is an integral part of achieving an advanced democracy and the values of [the] April [Revolution] in Portugal's future.
This struggle is a permanent construction, which has on its horizon the supreme goal of the working-class movement, of the workers and the exploited – their liberation from the exploiters, a classless society, Socialism and Communism.
If it is true that the enemy is powerful and that the path that must be trodden may be a long one, it is also true that each new Union member, each struggle that we wage, each victory that is scored, bring us closer to these demanding goals.
The Struggle continues!
Long live the workers' struggle!
Long live the class Trade Union Movement!
Long live JCP!
Long live the PCP!
