ICELAND -
(18) The latter organisation has just taken the initiative of confronting the
Wage earners' MMM publicly on the question of unity with the PT, counterposing a proposal for forming a united front among only discontent erupts the working-class organisations.
As one of the OMT leaders declared, "The leadership of the MMM is misleading the workers about its present opposition to the government. There are lots of
For more than a month, economic and political life in this tiny island forums for discussion on the press or nation was convulsed by a general strike of public and printing workers.
democratic freedoms, but no action.
There were no newspapers, no TV, no radio. In a country where almost
The workers are simply invited to be everything but fish is imported, the flow of goods off ships was blocked.
spectators in these forums. If the MMM
Virtually the only press appearing was the daily sheet of the public returned to government, it would have a workers. In order to keep up a propaganda campaign against the strikers, policy still more to the right than in the bourgeois groups had to set up pirate radio stations, and directly
1982.
defy the police, who were obliged by law to shut them down. The strike the OMT considers
Thus, that it is ended November 1 in a partial victory for the workers, who got a 20% necessary to get the working-class base raise. The following articles were written before the strike ended.
of the MMM to make one last effort to make a balance sheet of the leadership's policies, and to break with it. A new workers' party with a serious mass implantation could not emerge unless these hundreds of activists and pathisers are won definitively to such a project.
But, over and above these conjunctural political battles, the resurgence of the
Mauritian workers' movement will depend on much more daring initiatives.
This is in part what the OMT is trying to do with its mass front, the FNAS. In
Mauritius, where the industrial working class is a minority and the trade unions are very weak, a unifying framework for struggle has to be offered. There has to be some central arena for organising the young unemployed, women, the small planters and fisherfolk, as well as for the free zone workers and the workers in the sugar industry. The failure of the MMM also stems from its inability to provide this sort of broad organisation to the thousands of Mauritians who want to fight the bosses and the rich without being full members of a revolutionary organisation. The FNAS is aiming to provide this unifying framework, even if for the moment it is still a modest force.
Through offering a framework for the struggle above the trade-union, professional or communalist divisions in the neighbourhoods, and in the future in the FNAS the villages and factories, could succeed in its objective.
For the OMT-FNAS, as for the rest of the Mauritian left, this is a decisive period. Given the upheavals going on in economic life, as well as social life and in the political parties, now is the time to grasp the significance of what is going on in order to go forward to rebuild the workers' and popular movement.
18. Lalit and the OMT derive from the MMM.
These two organisations formed an opposition which split in
1980.
The tendency cument formed Lalit left the MMM in 1982.
which
That which gave rise to the OMT was excluded
MMM in 1983.
This latter organisatrom the tion considers itself revolutionary Marxist.
See
No
26,
International Viewpoint,
49, March
1984.
International Viewpoint 12 November 1984
Gerry FOLEY
In fact, the bourgeoisie's violation of its own laws has widened the breach between the government and the police who, while prohibited from striking, support the demands of the other public workers. Kevin Done, correspondent for the British business daily the Financial Times, which advocates using the repressive forces in Britain to defeat the miners, pointed up this aspect in an October 16
"Police searching for the transmitter entry to the party's [the right-wing Independence Party] headquarters by party officials backed by Mr Gudmundsson [the minister of finance], on the grounds that they had no search
*Meanwhile the police, who are also members of the striking public sector union but are forced by law to stay at their jobs, had to hear government ministers being interviewed by the illegal radio stations. They demonstrated their solidarity with the strikers by a march in full uniform through Reykjavik with placards reading: 'We are policemen not slaves.' "
The combination of a fragile economy and a highly organized and militant workers' movement is an explosive: one. In May 1983, the country had an inflation rate of 130 to 150 percent, the rightwing government claims that it has been reduced to about 15% by its austerity measures, which have drastically cut the workers' of living, especially that of public workers.
Real wages of public workers have dropped by a third in less than two years. And this year the government offered only a 3 percent raise from September 1 and another 2 percent increase in January, coupled with vague promises of tax cuts.
Moreover, the premier himself, Streingrimer Hermansson, has predicted a new drop of 5% in the standard of living for the coming year. The system for providing cost-of-living increases was scrapped in May 1983. In these conditions, the public workers revolted, voting in September by 80 percent to reject the government's offer.
The confrontation is extremely sharp in particular because the Icelandie bourgeoisie has little maneuvering room. The fishing industry accounts for about 20 percent of the GNP and about 70 percent of export earnings. It has entered into a deep crisis, with the take of cod, the most important part of the fish harvest, having fallen from 461,000 tons in 1981 to 250,000 tons this year. Thus, the GNP has fallen by about 10 percent over the last three years. Since the basic causes of this are long-term overinvestment in the industry and the exhaustion of fish stocks through overfishing, there is no solution
Israel, Iceland is the world's most indebted country per capita, with a foreign debt amounting to 60% of the GNP and 20-22% of annual export in-
On the other hand, the Icelandic bourgeoisie faces a working class that has more strike experience than virtually any other in the world and a very high level
For example, in Iceland it is illegal for anyone to take a striker's job. In fact, this has led to a battle between pro-working class and pro-bourgeois students at the university over the question of whether the janitor has the right to let the chancellor unlock the doors. is the former's job, but the latter holds
Because of the strength of the workers' movement, the bourgeois parties have, with rare exceptions, tried to keep the reformist working-class parties in the government. The present offensive was prepared for by rejecting them as coalition partners and setting up a bourgeois "class-war" government.
The Icelandic section of the Fourth International, the Fylkingin, pointed out in the resolution of its congress this summer:
"The formation of the coalition government of the Progressive and the In-
23
On Wednesday, we had a demonstration, and there was no trouble whatsoever."
dependence Party on May 26, 1983, and the economic measures that followed signalled the beginning of a new period in Icelandic politics."
It continued: "The period from the end of the Second World War and until sometime just before 1974 was characterized internationally and in this country by economic expansion. This expansionary period made certain real reforms possible without leading to a fall in the profit rate. This laid the objective basis for class collaborationism and for coalition governments between bourgeois parties and workers parties in a twofold way. Firstly, the same need for capital to attack living standards with the ferocity that almost makes it impossible for workers parties to take part, did not exist as it does now. Secondly, it was possible for the workers parties to enter into coalition governments with the bourgeois parties and to get some real reforms to show to their supporters."
On the level of the economic struggle, the hold of the reformist bureaucrats has weakened. The present struggles were foreshadowed by the overwhelming rejection in February by the Dagsbrun,
Cot anton To not ot the unskilled workers' union, of the con-
was put by a Fylkingin member and it won by 800 votes to 17, with even the leadership being forced to vote for it.
"I am totally against that," Hanna Kristin Stefansdottir said. "That will only mean bigger cutbacks in the public sector."
Along with the public workers, the printing workers are also on strike. But the rest of the Icelandic workers are still at work as usual. "What support are you getting from the other unions?" I asked.
"First, I have to say a few words about the sort of propaganda that is being used against us to cut down our support among private-sector workers. In recent years, the right-wing papers, which are the biggest ones, have harped on the theme of how much the taxpayers have to pay out for our wages and how poorly the public sector functions.
"Now the papers aren't coming out because of the conflict and radio and TV broadcasting has also stopped. But