ALGIERS, January 15 — A massive wildcat general strike of nearly 20,000 auto, steel, port and public health workers is in its twelth day and is spreading across Algeria, amid repeated pitched battles with thousands of cops and security forces. Workers are not only striking against their companies but also directly against the government, defying its ban on public rallies and demonstrations, stemming from a “state of emergency” declared in the early 1990s.
Strikers are demanding a wage hike, and in a political challenge to the government, changes in the minimum wage and tax laws. They’re also denouncing the sweetheart deal signed by their union misleaders which raises the retirement age from 50 to 60 for workers doing difficult and dangerous work, some of whom began working at age 17.
One worker declared, “For years they’ve been promising us significant wage increases. Algeria is raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in oil profits but the citizen still has to contend with indescribable poverty.”
In condemning the union sellouts, one worker told the press: “I began to have doubts when all the parties said they were satisfied with the meeting of the UGTA [the union], the government and the bosses. Three speakers, each of whom is defending his interests, cannot all be equally satisfied unless it is on the backs of the workers.”
Strikers Battle Cops
On January 3, 5,000 SNVI auto workers wildcatted near Rouiba, to be joined within 24 hours by workers in Hussain-Dey near Algiers, in Annaba to the east and in Tiaret in the southwest, as well as by thousands in the industrial zone east of here. The cops blocked marchers there by massing all-country vehicles, troop transport vans, tear gas grenades, water cannon and sanitation trucks to occupy strategic intersections in the zone. One worker said it was ironic since it is the workers who had produced all these vehicles.
Workers from Anabib, Mobsco, Hydroamenagement and Enad also walked. All told, 11,000 had struck.
Marching workers have been attempting to force their way through police roadblocks. On January 6, 2,000 workers heading from their factory gates to Rouiba were stopped by police, who injured three workers. The next day, 5,000 marched on Rouiba, when two more were injured in clashes with thousands of riot police. The latter are trying to prevent different groups of factory strikers from joining together in these demonstrations.
On the same day, workers tried to force their way through roadblocks leading to the Mobsco factory on the main roads in the industrial zone. Then when hundreds of gendarmes armed with wooden clubs resembling pickaxe handles rained down blows on the front ranks, barring the route. The workers chanted slogans exposing the government and the union confederation and its chief sellout, Sidi Said.
When the union misleaders tried to pacify the angry workers, they began throwing stones at the cops’ roadblocks.
“We work under difficult conditions and we can’t even manage to feed our children,” declared one worker. “The oil money is shared by the [government] and their zealous servants, while the worker is condemned to live a hell on earth.”
Another said, “Despite the repression, we aren’t going to stop demonstrating if the authorities do not announce concrete measures to improve our purchasing power.”
Steel Goes Out; Port Paralyzed
On January 12, 7,200 workers at Arcelor-Mittal, the giant multi-national outfit, began an “unlimited strike” to prevent the company from closing its El-Hidjar plant near Annaba and force it to renovate to keep it open. The next morning, the steelworks, the depots and warehouses, and port installations were totally paralyzed. Two days later a massive march of steelworkers went from company offices to the guard post at the steelworks.
This uprising of basic industrial workers in Algeria is a model for all industrial workers to follow. But the bosses still hold state power and will use this apparatus, helped by their lieutenants “leading” the unions, to attempt to either crush or divert these militant workers from their just demands. What is needed is communist leadership to head the workers’ movement in the direction of revolution, to destroy the bosses’ state power and establish workers’ power, the only answer to the continuing hell created by capitalism. :12` ;od`c:"Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA'>(Continued next issue; stay tuned)