For a united working class alternative. Shorter hours, not longer ! Open borders, not war on immigrants! Public housing and education for all, not privatization! Make the capitalists pay, not us!

The European Union has launched the biggest attack of its history against the working class. The 65-hour directive, the anti-immigrant directive, the Bolkestein directive and the Bologna Plan are part of single plan to reduce the cost of labor, to transfer wealth from labor to capital. If the work week is longer, and thus there are fewer jobs and more unemployed, wages are driven down. If immigrants are terrorized to the point that they feel they must take work at any wages, the wages of all are driven down. If through privatization work is transferred from a higher-wage a lower-wage work force, wages are driven down.

The EU's plan, in reality, is to divide workers against each other, to create a continent-wide competition of countries, industries and individual to race downwards to levels set by the directives. That is why we have to reply to this not with a series of disjointed protests against individual directives, but with a single, coordinated campaign. Unions fighting against the 65 hours directive, immigrant organisations fighting the “directive of shame”, students fighting the Bologna plan and public sector workers fighting the Bolkestein directive need to unite in a single struggle against the EU plan—coordinating days of actions and combining demands.

Nor can we respond just by rejecting their plan—for they will come up with other attacks. We must pose our own working class alternative that will be what WE want.

-Reduction of the workweek in all countries to 35 hours for all workers, WITHOUT REDUCTION OF WAGES OR LAYOFFS. Defeat of the 65 hours directive.

-Equal rights for all, regardless of immigration status. Freedom of movement across all borders. Abolition of the directive on immigration.

-Free higher education for all, massive public works programs with direct government employment to guarantee housing and essential services for all. Democratic control of public workplaces, with representation from workers and the communities involved. End to all privatization, abolition of Bolkestein directive and the Bologna Plan.

-Financing public works and extension of public service by ending corporate subsidies and greatly increased taxation of corporations and of individual capitalists.

-PROHIBITION OF LOCKOUTS, OF DISMISSALS AND LAYOFFS

Only a massive Europe-wide movement for such broad demands, a process of mass strikes, spreading beyond individual sectors, can win concessions. Given the crisis, such concessions under capitalism will tend to be temporary. But in these mass strike struggles the workers can acquire the organizations and consciousness to radically change the world, to replace capitalism with a democratic socialism that will permanently provide a decent life for all.

We call on all organizations to join in meetings and forums to plan such a joint campaign this fall.

International Luxemburgist Network