Algeria: Pro-Boss Union Hacks Bust Autoworkers’ Wildcat Strike

ALGIERS, January 18 — The SNVI autoworkers ended their nine-day wildcat and street protests yesterday as the UGTA union misleader, Sidi Saïd, succeeded once again in rapidly stifling worker protests.

The SNVI workers almost walked again when a UGTA communiqué said they’d have to make up the work-time their boss lost in the strike! “How can it be that the union is taking the place of management?,” a group of workers told the press. There should be discussions with the rank and file…before anything is decided.”

The strikers only obtained an opening of negotiations on their wage demands, modification of the minimum wage law and suspension of the increase in years needed to earn a retirement pension. The workers have established a committee to follow the negotiations.

The government mobilized thousands of cops, armed with water cannon, riot clubs and tear gas, to beat up workers whose families have suffered years of poverty. Labor Minister Tayeb Louh tried to discredit the strikers by saying they were “manipulated by political forces” hostile to the government.

But actually it was the union misleaders who delivered the crucial blow. “In truth,” said R. Hasni, a strike leader, “we were pushed to go back to work by the undermining of the strike conducted by the union headquarters. Last Thursday [Jan. 14], very early in the morning, local union hacks went to the foundry, vehicle-body workshops, and the industrial vehicles division to persuade the workers to end the strike. They even threatened rebellious workers, saying, ‘Those who don’t go back to work are likely to be fired.’”

At their January 14 general assembly local union officials reported on their negotiations with UGTA confederation leader Sidi Saïd. A group of militant workers told the press, “They talked to us about [repealing] article 87 of the labor laws, a wage hike in the upcoming industry-wide contract negotiations and a freezing of the new law on retirement until 2011.”

One worker declared that, “Our union leaders act for the government, which pulls the confederation leaders’ strings every time in order to stifle the workers’ struggles….If this wage increase depended on Sidi Saïd alone, why didn’t he decree it beforehand?....We’ve been on strike for over a week and now the trade union leaders say they have finally decided to grant us a wage hike. We didn’t ask the UGTA to decide on…our demands, we only demanded that it put forward our demands….We demanded straightforwardly that our ‘negotiators’ withdraw and leave us alone,” he concluded.

Another angry worker told interviewers, “They aren’t paying attention to our demands; we’re going to continue the strike. [Local officials] tell us that if we demonstrate in the street, they won’t back us. That’s what upsets them, street demonstrations. It’s clear that ‘sidhoum’ [master] Saïd gave them the job of busting the strike. Today, we stayed inside the plant to debate the problem in depth, but next week we’ll occupy the streets again.”

But the pro-capitalist union misleaders had already broken the back of the strike, and yesterday the workers voted to end it.

However, the workers’ poverty continues. “My doctor prescribed glasses for me, but I’ve never been able to buy them,” said a 52-year-old SNVI truck driver, a 28-year veteran worker. “My basic monthly salary? $193.” That’s roughly the average monthly wage in the Rouiba industrial zone.

Bonuses can push salaries up to between $344 and $413 a month,” said a 42-year-old mechanic, father of four. “In a week, I’ll be obliged to ask my family for money because my wages will already have gone up in smoke [all been spent],” he added.

“We who work in the tannery are the worst off in the Rouiba industrial zone!” shouted a tannery worker. “I’ve got 21 years seniority and I make $275 a month!”

“Aysheene goutte-à-goutte, ashr yam tmoot” is one chant the workers shouted during the strike — “we live from day to day and our [monthly] pay gives out in ten days.”

These conditions will inevitably force the workers to strike again. But what’s lacking is revolutionary communist leadership to turn these strikes into schools for communism, getting workers off the treadmill of reformism under which the bosses always have the power to take back any gains. The fight must be to destroy the profit system and establish a worker-run communist society in which the working class, led by its communist party, will collectively share the fruits of their labors.