Just after skyrocketing global food prices drove a wave of protests involving people in up to 30 countries in March-April, a second round of worldwide protests has kicked off sparked by the rise in oil prices to historic highs.
The food crisis threatened to increase the number of hungry to more than 850 million, the fuel crisis threatens millions more with more poverty and unemployment, while dragging semi-colonial countries deeper into crisis.
Oil prices started to rise after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. From a price of US$66 a barrel in September 2006 they have continued upwards, passing $100 for the first time on 2 January 2008 and reaching the latest high point of more than $140 a barrel. Even adjusted for inflation this is the highest oil price ever and threatens to engulf many industries and third world countries in economic crises. What’s more, it shows no sign of abating; some are predicting rises as high as $200 a barrel.
Last month, after a meeting demanded by the US, the major Asian oil-importing economies including China, India and South Korea agreed to end fuel subsidies. Other countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were already forced to slash subsidies.
The Bush government’s hypocrisy knows no bounds, considering the US consumes more than all these countries combined, with a fraction of their population!
Yet it is blaming these countries’ fuel subsidies for boosting demand the poor must be made to pay for reducing inflation, whether in Britain or Bangladesh.
The response has been protests around the globe, from strikes by unionised drivers and oil workers in South Korea to a rash of protest convoys and blockades by lorry drivers, fishermen and taxi drivers across Latin America, the Mediterranean and Asia.
Korean general strike
On 8 June, the South Korean government announced a $10 billion stimulus package to ease higher oil prices it is the fifth largest importing country in the world.
The next day, truckers slammed the inadequate subsidy and voted to strike with 5,000 blockading the country’s ports and cargo terminals, demanding that the government introduce a minimum wage. Though few drivers were unionised, the mass of non-unionised drivers took part in the strike, grinding ports to a halt, hitting much of industry and electrifying the workers movement. Truckers said that the Government must lower fuel costs and force employers to increase wages.
Fearing losses of up to 128 billion won ($123 million) in export losses a day, the government threatened to punish striking truckers, use police to break picket lines, and the army to scab. In face of such provocation, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) threatened to call all its members out.
This strike movement is connecting with a larger radicalisation against the government’s caving in to US demands for Korea to open its markets to US-produced beef, which has sparked daily demonstrations of the youth and the largest demo in Korean history on 10 June of one million people in Seoul.
The KCTU announced that its members had voted for a general strike on 2 July. President Lee Seok-haeng stated: “We will walk out like the baseball batting order goes; the first batter is the Korea Cargo Transport Workers’ Union, the second batter is the constructors’ and machinery workers, followed by the metal workers and the railway workers.”
The Korean workers are showing how to knock their own bosses out of the ballpark.
World protests
Similar protests took place across Asia. In May, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia announced plans to cut subsidies or liberalise government-set fuel prices.
In Indonesia youth and students responded to the 30% cut in subsidies by taking to the streets and throwing rocks and petrol bombs. Immediately after, Sri Lanka raised fuel prices and the Bangladesh government announced plans to hike prices to limit losses at the state-owned distributor.
The Land Transport Federation of Thailand has threatened to gridlock Bangkok with 100,000 trucks if the government did not subsidise fuel for lorries. In June even China raised petrol and diesel prices by 18 per cent to avoid greater losses by its state-owned refiners.
Millions in these countries live on less than $2 a day and are already squeezed by food rises.
In Managua, Nicaragua, a two-week strike by public transport workers and taxi drivers brought the capital to a standstill, with blockades closing neigbourhoods and stoning scab taxis, forced the “leftwing” Ortega government to raise its oil subsidy from 30 cents to $1.30. Thousands of Chilean truckers struck, blockaded roads, until President Bachelet announced a $1 billion subsidy to help offset the rising costs of fuel and taxes.
Militant action in Europe
French fishermen spearheaded the movement with blockades of ports, blocking channel ferries from Dunkirk and an oil depot near Marseilles. French farmers and lorry drivers joined in, blocking oil depots and staging a go-slow on the Charles de Gaulle airport road.
Fishermen in Spain, Portugal and Italy followed, the Cepesca fishermen’s federation in Spain called an indefinite strike. It mounted a demonstration in Madrid giving away 20 tonnes of free fish to point out that they were working at a loss. Spanish and Portuguese lorry drivers began their own indefinite strike with thousands in convoys blocking several major cities and fuel depots. Supermarkets shelves emptied, petrol stations went dry, and three car manufacturers suspended production for lack of parts.
In Britain lorry protests were accompanied by striking oil workers and tanker drivers demanding a pay rise out of the enormous profits of Shell, a record £13.9bn.
Who will lead?
At the Madrid demonstration the president of the Tarragona fishing association in Catalonia said “Until recently, staff salaries amounted to our biggest overhead cost. Now it’s fuel.” This clearly shows the cross class nature of these protests, they are a mixture of the staff and self-employed mobilised by the petty-bourgeousie or “little bosses” of the commercial boats, farms, and trucking firms. Similarly many road haulage companies have supported the protests in Britain.
The question is how the working class can come to the head of this movement and lead the poorer, working and more desperate sections of the petty-bourgeousie there were reports that the drivers leading the Spanish strike were the mostly self-employed, non-unionised drivers in a fight against inflation.
The danger is that the not-so-little bosses organise sections of the petit bourgeoisie and their own workers behind them with demands that make the working class pay with higher food prices. The working class must move decisively to show that it has the muscle and social power to win real victories.
For this we need a programme that can defeat the oil multinationals and the speculators.
• Nationalise the oil, gas and electricity companies under workers’ control.
• Cheap oil and gas to peasants, workers and poor truck and taxi drivers.
• Nationalise the distribution networks. No profits for the “middlemen”.
• Set up price committees under trade union control to publish real inflation figures rather than government lies and to enforce fair prices. These committees of workers and peasants can also distribute food and fuel to those in need.
• Swingeing taxes on the speculators and the profits of the multinational to fund cheap subsidised oil, gas and fuel for the poor.
• For a sliding scale of wages, every per cent on inflation put a per cent on the wages.
These measures should be fought for both nationally and internationally. Global inflation is an attack on us all and has the potential to unite us all against the capitalists. International gatherings such as the Malmo ESF and meetings of the WSF must be used to co-ordinate action.
G8 threatens Opec
Gordon Brown has condemned the OPEC group of oil producing countries including Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran. Brown stated it was “a scandal that 40 per cent of the oil is controlled by Opec – and that at a time when oil is desperately needed and supply needs to expand, that Opec can withhold supply from the market.”
He called for a dialogue with the oil producers while Kevin Rudd, Australian PM, called for the G8 to “apply a blowtorch” to OPEC does he want to do blow it up?
The US made it clear that this dialogue would be more of a threat as its congress passed a resolution seeking to sue OPEC for fixing oil prices and keeping down production. This prompted Saudi Arabia to pledge to pump more oil, though not enough to lower the oil price.