Spain: What Programme do we as Workers Need?

Austerity isn’t working; in fact it is simply exacerbating the deep crisis that Spain finds itself in. None of the mainstream parties have come up with a programme that can put an end to this crisis. Here we publish the programme of the Spanish Marxists of Lucha de Clases.

[First published in Spanish 14^th September 2012; translated by Sian Creely]

The crisis of capitalism has revealed the solutions to the crisis that both the bourgeois and social democratic parties have reserved for workers and the poorest sections of society. In the context of Spain today, the only alternative that the capitalists and their political representatives can offer is for us to pay the loan-shark debts of big business and the banks with the real wealth that we as workers create.

In Izquierda Unida (United Left) we as Lucha de Clases (Class Struggle) put forward the need to develop a programme that will meet the immediate interests of the working class and the poorest sections of society. Such a programme begins with the following points:

• Get rid of the laws and counter-reforms being used against the working class – measures that have gone hand in hand with the cuts in social spending.
• No closure of any company. Any company that closes shall be immediately nationalised under the democratic control of the workers.
• The introduction of a minimum wage of 1,000 Euros a month, the same as the minimum pension
• The same amount of 1,000 Euros to be paid to every adult who is unemployed.
• The whole of the banking and finance sector should be nationalised into one public bank, not to absorb losses and to be promptly privatised again, as the PSOE and PP hope to do with the Cajas (Savings Banks), but rather to take control of all their assets and use them in the interests of the majority.
• The banks hold a large quantity of empty housing. These should be nationalised and used to create a stock of social housing and rented out for no more than 10% of household income. Mortgage payments (past, present or future) should also be limited to no more than 10% of household income and should be frozen in cases of unemployment. In this way housing shall be guaranteed as a basic right.
• A thorough investigation should be carried out into the banking system and into companies that have gone into “temporary receivership”: the accounts of such companies should be opened to the workers NOW, in order to discover where the profits went during the property bubble, and all of those involved in corruption scandals, illegal financing of political parties, etc. associated with the speculative bubble to be brought to justice. Such an investigation should be carried out by representatives of the Platform for those Affected by Mortgages, workers in the banking sector and their union representatives.
• The Public Debt should be written off with small investors only compensated in cases of proven need.
• Given the obvious incompetence and irresponsibility demonstrated by big business and bankers, we demand the nationalisation of the basic sectors of economy and industry, starting with the companies of the IBEX-35, compensating small savers and shareholders only in the case of proven need. Only in this way, by controlling these resources through the workers and the representatives elected by them in different companies, will the state be able to undertake a democratic plan of production to guarantee the well-being of the majority. In this way it would be possible to reduce the working day in order to share out the work that is available so that everyone is able to work 35 hours a week without loss of pay. At the same time, the state would have the power to undertake an ambitious plan of investment and public works in all sectors of the economy, to give work to the 5.6 million unemployed and make them economically active, thereby assuring better health, pensions and social services in general.
• Decent public healthcare and education for everyone. Pensions and social rights for all residents of Spain.
• Recognition of the democratic rights of the different nationalities of Spain, including the right to self-determination.
• Another Europe is possible, a Europe that defends the overwhelming majority of the population. No to the Europe of the bankers and the rich! This is the mood that prevails in Greece, and is also what defeated Sarkozy in France. This idea can unite the immense majority of the current population of the EU. The only solution for Europe is the Socialist United States of Europe!