Statement from the Secretariat of the CNT on the recent demonstrations and protests against the government's new labour reforms.

The Confederation believes that the demonstration against the labor reforms of the People's Party should be only the first step of a widespread social response which would lead to the calling of a general strike.

There is nothing to negotiate and the only option to defend ourselves against the Labor Reform of PP is its removal.

Since February 10 there have been constant protests against labor reform in different cities. Protests will continue in the coming days, and hundreds of thousands of workers have taken to the streets, especially over the last weekend.If the CCOO and UGT raised this mobilization as a question about the will to fight of the working class or as a thermometer to assess the call for a general strike, the answer is clear: the struggle is the way forward and it is necessary to call for a general strike.

For the CNT, the important social response, continuing last year's demonstrations against cuts and economic policies initiated by the PSOE government, and deepened by the current PP government, highlights the need to continue the fight in the streets against these measures, and highlights the timid response so far by CCOO and UGT and the detrimental policies of constantly surrendering the rights of the working class practiced by these unions in recent times.

The agreement for the cut in salaries or the recent II Employment Agreement to wage freezes are only recent examples of these policies that we reject and that have brought continuous setbacks for labor rights and a total offense of the bosses and bankers against social rights in all fields.

So CNT believes that the only option for workers should be the immediate withdrawal of RD 3/2012, An attack like this on the working class cannot be reformed, the labor rights at stake are not negotiable and it is only continuous mobilizations on the street can defend them and lead to new victories for the working class.

CNT considers that it is not the time to retreat, It has mobilized and will continue advocating mobilizations like those it has been conducting in recent months, both in mobilizations called by the CNT, as in those carried out with other militant unions and social movements, and also in the demonstrations like those called by the institutional trade unions last weekend, where it participated, very critically,

The refusal of the CCOO and UGT to call a general strike, and the latest statements of its leaders, trying to reform and negotiate the measures taken by the government, raises fear that there will be a new surrender of all rights by a type of unionism that would thus definitely have shown its inability to face the offensive of a government that has assumed the maximum program of the bosses and the bankers.

The CNT calls on all workers to encourage continued and growing mobilizations, building another form of unionism, to increase conflict in the workplace to counter the launch of the Labor Reform and to achieve its withdrawal.

Moving towards a general strike call with the ability to reverse the attacks on workers is the challenge the working class and the trade unions must consider, so we can see that rights are not surrendered, but defended and won.

Secretariat of the Confederal Committee

National Confederation of Labour - CNT