Dear
comrades:
CNT-E,
FAU and USI are sections of the International Workers’ Association
(IWA), founded in 1922.
We
consider essential and urgent the existence of an active and
inclusive anarcho-syndicalist International, which participates in
and promotes struggles of workers worldwide and facilitates social
improvements for them through this. Unfortunately, we have to admit
that despite our best efforts the IWA has deviated from its
principles and practices. Instead of concentrating on union activity,
it has become bureaucratic, dogmatic and isolationist with regard to
the labor movement. Considering this, we need to rebuild our
International.
We
believe that our International should restrict itself to general
principles that express the commonalities that the members sections
have, despite their different histories, traditions and
social-economic situations. For us these general principles include:
–
being an anarcho-syndicalist or revolutionary syndicalist
organization as well as a bottom-up organization;
–
not receiving economic funding from the state due to being a union or
carrying out union activity;
–
not supporting as an organisation any electoral project, neither of a
political party nor of individual candidates.
In
addition, we believe that member sections should have at least 100
members nationally. We
believe that smaller
groups can carry out propaganda activities or local conflicts better
and should concentrate on developing at the national level, before
taking part in the complex decision-making process of an
International. In order to support groups which have less than 100
members we will have the status «Friends». We wish to help
such groups grow and would be pleased to have them take part in our
international solidarity campaigns.
At
the same time, we do not presume to know or be aware of every other
initiative worldwide that might fulfil these requirements. Therefore,
we are issuing this open invitation to the Intenational Conference,
to be held in Bilbao (Spain) on November 26-27, 2016 during which we
will be able to work towards a congress to rebuild an IWA. At the
conference you will have a chance to present your organisation and
its work, get to meet other similar initiatives, assess the benefits
of joining us in this endeavor, make contributions and proposals
towards the congress agenda and the rebuilding of an IWA, and
explore, in any case, the possibility of joint international actions
and solidarity.
Even
if your organization is not interested in joining this project on a
more formal capacity, or ultimately decides not to, we still invite
you to contact us to collaborate in international solidarity
campaigns.
A
proposal for the conference agenda and more practical info will be
sent at a later date to those organizations that have expressed an
interest in participating in it.
You
can contact us on any of the following email addresses to express
your interest, confirm your attedance, raise queries or concerns,
etc.:
CNT-E, exteriores@cnt.es
FAU, is@fau.org
USI-AIT, info@usi-ait.org
In solidarity,
¡Viva el
anarcosindicalismo! ¡Viva la AIT!
