The World Federation of Trade Unions, representing more than 105 million workers across hundreds of affiliated unions worldwide, called for an annual International Action Day of Trade Unions for Peace on Sept. 1, coinciding with the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II.
“We firmly reiterate the demand for an end to all imperialist interventions, full and unconditional respect for the sovereignty, independence, and the right of every people to determine their own present and future,” the WFTU said in its call to action.
The federation’s statement comes as NATO’s recent summit in Turkey confirmed the deepening military plans of the U.S., the E.U., and their allies. New weapons programs, agreements, and expanding manufacturing capacity within the military alliance, along with soaring military budgets, “further increase the risk of a generalized imperialist conflict with disastrous consequences for the peoples,” they said.
In their statement, the WFTU once again condemned the “genocide against the Palestinian people by the murdering state of Israel.” They reiterated their long-held demand for an immediate end to ethnic cleansing, the cessation of occupation and settlements, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The federation also denounced the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the ongoing attacks on Lebanon and the wider Middle East, the “murderous intervention in Venezuela and the abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro,” and intensified imperialist aggression against Cuba—including the “criminal economic, commercial, and financial blockade.”
Workers refuse to be soldiers for capital
The WFTU saluted what it described as militant initiatives by workers who “oppose any involvement of their countries in wars, refusing to work for the production, loading, and transfer of weapons and military equipment, and boycotting any collaboration or facilitation linked with the active battlefronts.”
The federation is also promoting an International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers against war and militarization on Oct. 30.
“The people have no interest in aligning themselves with any imperialist power center or alliance,” the federation said. “Workers all over the world know that the tremendous resources channeled into the war economy are drained away at the expense of the welfare state, education, healthcare, wages, pensions, and benefits for the popular strata.
“Military spending diverts resources from schools, hospitals, and housing. Inflation driven by war profiteering erodes workers’ wages and pits them against each other in a race to the bottom. And the prospect of a wider war threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.
“The peoples all over the world know there is nothing to expect from war but death, misery, refugees, poverty and deterioration of their living conditions,” the WFTU said.
The International Action Day on Sept. 1 offers trade unionists everywhere an opportunity to raise their voices against war and for peace—and to build the international working-class solidarity that alone can stop the march toward world war.
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