Solidarity with
Moraveco workers
WORKERS AT the Peruvian metal factory of Moraveco have been on strike against militarisation of their factory since August 1, 1985.
production unit. It was their military bosses who intervened, with the aid of the police, to remove the strikers from the occupation.
In order to force the armed forces and thus the new government of Alan Garica to negotiate, the workers have now decided to occupy another unit of the company, which still belongs to COFIDE and on September 23, they began a hunger strike. This strike comes at a bad moment for the Alan Garcia government and for the liberal and popular image which he is trying to project compared to previous rulers.
In an attempt to wear out and discourage the workers, who, of course, have very little means of survival, the president of the chamber of deputies, Luis Negreiros, has appointed a commission of congress whose main object will be to drag things out as much as possible in order to force the Moraveco workers to give up their fight. A measure of the lack of seriousness with which this commission is viewed is illustrated in the fact that Etramsa's manager, General Sineco Jarama Davila, has not even bothered to participate. What has happened, though, is that the army and the police attacked the occupied COFIDE factory on September 26, using tear gas, at the very moment when the workers were protesting against the uselessness of the commission by blocking the streets of Lima.
The Moraveco workers are maintaining their mobilisation, for they do not intend to give in on such basic demands. On September 30, they reaffirmed their determination to pursue their hunger strike until they got a satisfactory result. In the appeal gold sustry dese be appear for solidarity addressed to trade unionists and activists around the world, they stated; 'we are aware that the attacks that the bourgeoisie is making on us are political and it is with the same weapon that we will reply until the victory of our struggle. But our strike and occupation require international support from other workers in the metal and car industries etc. in order that we can continue this fight and at the same time forge greater class consciousness amongst the workers of our country, which will lead us, in the not so distant future, to the socialist revolution in Peru.'
Letters and telegrams demanding trade union rights and adherence to collective agreements at the Moraveco factory should be addressed to Alan Garcia, president of the republic, Palacio de Gobierno, Lima and to the Ministerio de Trabajo, Lima Peru. All financial contributions to the strikers should be sent to Enrique Heriz, Avenida Alfonso Ugarte, 1228, 308, Lima 5, Peru.
They have issued an appeal for essential that such an appeal should
Last year the industry and investment bank, COFIDE handed over one of the Moraveco units, which makes arms and military transport, to the Peruvian army. The new company was called the Etramsa (Enterprise for military transport and Equipment SA) and it began business on July 30. The company's first act was to instruct the 456 workers in the unit concerned to sign new, individual work contracts - in order to bypass gains made through previous collective agreements and codes of practice.
As one of the secretaries of the metalworkers union, Wilfredo Sanchez, underlined, 'with the transfer of ownership of Moraveco they are international solidarity and it is not go unanswered. trying to impose conditions of work on the employees which have nothing to do with our status as civilians'. He explained that it represented a real negation 'of basic rights which we had gained in the 23 years which our union has existed and which are also enshrined in the bourgeois constitution of the state? The workers response
The workers at the Moraveco factory, whose union is affiliated to the Federation of Workers in the Metal Industry (FETIMP -CGTP), responded to this attack with an all-out strike and an occupation of the militarised
CGTP demonstration on May 1, 1980 (DR)
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