International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
On this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the UITBB Secretariat underlines the importance of the fight against fascism, xenophobia, racism and nationalism, which are directed against particularly vulnerable groups such as immigrants and refugees. UITBB repeats that all workers are one, independently of colour, religion, language or country of origin, and expresses its determination to fight for the rights of all workers, regardless of ethnic, racial or any other characteristics, as no one chooses to become an immigrant or a refugee; rather, such phenomena are the result of the criminal action of the powers of capital and the forces that support it.
The sectors we represent in the construction industry accept large numbers of immigrant and refugee workers, who are the victims of vicious exploitation by the employers, who use them as cheap labour force and as a weapon against organized workers, giving rise to phenomena such as unemployment, undeclared work and subcontracting. These are phenomena which divide the working class and deprive of local workers their own rights as well, so, it is crucial that we, as a global trade union movement, react as one. UITBB calls upon all its affiliated organisations and friends around the world, faithful to our class-oriented ideology and empowered by the decisions made in our international bodies, to intensify their struggles, so that foreign workers are integrated into host societies and trade unions through social, political and cultural initiatives, so that they will be able to enjoy, along with local workers, all the benefits they are entitled to.
Improving working conditions for workers in the construction industry and limiting the ability of the reactionary forces’ activity, who take advantage of the working people’s despair and negative emotions in each country, driving them towards dangerous ideologies such as xenophobia, racism and fascism, will showcase the importance of our sense of internationalist solidarity. Strength comes through unity, so all workers in the construction sector must be organized in the global Trade Union movement, as racism and xenophobia are weapons used by the capital to strike at the working class as a whole.
UITBB Secretariat