- Stop Imperialist Wars and Interventions
- Resources for peoples’ needs and not for NATO’s plans
The World Federation of Trade Unions, the militant voice of 105 million workers from 133 countries, organizes the 2024 International Action Day of Trade Unions for Peace on September 1st, on the occasion of the dark anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War with the Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland. We call upon the workers and class-oriented trade unions all over the world to actively and militantly respond in this vital annual International Call for Action which is dedicated to the remembrance of millions of victims of Nazi and fascist atrocities and all those affected and suffering by imperialist conflicts and the endless thirst of big capital for profit.
The international class-oriented trade union movement denounces the war preparations of NATO which are dangerously escalated with a 12% increase in its military budget for 2024, reaching 2.03 billion euros and it’s an 18.2% increase in its civil budget, further enhancing the operational capacity of NATO Command Structure headquarters, missions, and global operations. These figures underscore a years-long trend toward a ‘war economy’ among NATO member states. Military spending has surged 18% across European Allies and Canada in 2024. Furthermore, 23 member states are allocating at least 2% of their GDP to military expenditures this year. A similar trend of skyrocketing military budgets is also recorded in other states and coalitions, exacerbating confrontation and heightening the risk of a widespread imperialist conflict with dire consequences.
At the same time, the ongoing increase in military spending constitutes a provocation for the peoples and the workers who consistently experience the impact of rising prices, inflation, and long-term austerity policies, while the exclusions, discriminations, embargoes, and sanctions imposed by the US, NATO, and the EU on various countries further affect the living standards of low-income families, workers, poor small farmers, and popular strata in general. We demand the full respect of every people’s sovereignty, independence, and the right to choose their own path. Resources should be spent to meet the contemporary needs of the peoples and the working class, rather than allocating them to wars and bloodshed. The workers, the peoples all over the globe have nothing to expect and nothing to gain from the inter-capitalist rivalries for geopolitical, economic control, and monopolies’ profitability that resulted in death, poverty, and misery.
The WFTU intensifies its firm struggle for Peace and strongly condemns the imperialist armed conflicts, over the length and breadth of the globe, demanding an immediate ceasefire and the end of the war in Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, and all the war zones, in the wider Middle East and elsewhere. We condemn the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and daily crimes conducted by Israel in Palestine, with the provocative tolerance and support of the USA, the EU, and their allies. We demand an immediate and unconditional end to all the military campaigns and attacks of the Israeli murderous state, the implementation of its international legal obligations in occupied Palestinian land and to immediately address the life-threatening conditions faced by the Palestinians.
We reiterate that the crucial precondition to secure and consolidate peace in the wider Middle East is to immediately end the Israeli occupation and settlements in the occupied Arab territories, guarantee the right of return for the refugees, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Moreover, we denounce the unacceptable position of the yellow unions within the international trade union movement. Unfortunately, the ITUC and its branches shamefully provide political backing and support to NATO its allies, and plans, insisting on an equal distance stance that equates the perpetrators with the victims and serves the bloody interests of monopolies.
The WFTU calls upon workers all over the globe, the militant trade unions to actively participate in the International Action Day of Trade Unions for peace, organizing militant activities to strongly denounce the uninterrupted increase in military expenditures and the ongoing imperialist conflicts; to assert the demand for dissolution of NATO and all military coalitions, the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, the respect for the independence and sovereignty of all states and to spread the message of internationalism and class struggle for lasting peace, for a world free of imperialist interventions and man-by-man exploitation.
The Secretariat
