Solidarity with Pakistani Workers

We congratulate the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF) for the successful convening of its National Congress. The Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party-Philippines) wishes you all the success and strength in carrying out your struggle for peace, democracy and social justice.

The global capitalist crisis, exacerbated by the global financial crisis that exploded in 2008, has brought enormous burden to the world's working people. While it is true that the deepening capitalist crisis brings with it the prospect of its imminent collapse and therefore the possibility of a system change, the process of building a strong working class movement may require new tactics and perhaps new organizational forms and struggles.This is because the capitalist crisis has also gave rise to de-industrialization which created sections of the working class outside of the formal economy.

In the Philippines, for instance, 70% of our labor force live on precarious conditions and remain unprotected as they are not employed in the formal economy. As in your case, child labor, contractual work arrangements, and worst, the existence of unpaid labor are prevalent in the Philippines.

On the other hand, the global crisis is also taking its heavy toll on workers in industries as corporations resort to downsizing, outsourcing and many forms of contractualization. In fact, we are now in the middle of an intense struggle against the policy of mass layoff and contractualization in the Philippine Airlines as well as in other big companies in the Philippines.

The capitalist crisis, no doubt, has denied the present and the next generation of workers opportunities to have decent jobs and better living conditions. We also live in a hostile environment where senseless wars and violence occur in many parts of the world. Pakistan, we are aware, has become an unwilling victim of America's "war on terror" brought into the "second front." These wars has even become more arbitrary and unilateral as superpowers move without the sanctions of international bodies.

What we have now, inded, is a period of acute capitalist crisis with wars and heigthening exploitation showing their ugly heads. The world's working class is thus faced with the challenge of building a force capable of reversing this historical course. This is the task only the working class can do.

Brothers and sisters, let us not allow this crisis lead the world toward barbarism. The Filipino working class will always be one with you and the world's working people in the struggle for peace, democracy and social justice.

Mabuhay! Long live!

In Solidarity,

Renato Magtubo
Chairperson
Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party-Philippines)