Throughout the world it is the workers who are paying the price for the capitalist crisis. In Britain it took a trillion pounds sterling to save the banks from collapse and the government now aims to pay for the bank bailout by making brutal spending cuts. The attacks by the Thatcher government decimated many working class communities but the planned spending cuts go much further than Thatcher ever dreamed. Over the next 4 years the government intends to cut public spending by 25%.

On November 1 1910, the CNT ( Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, or National Confederation of Labour) was established at the premises of the Circle of Fine Arts in Barcelona. This organization, heir to the First International in the region of Spain (1870), was born of the labor movement itself as the first independent trade union organization in this country.

The International Secretary of the French CNT-AIT  (sri@cnt-ait-fr.org) has in a couple of brief reports informed the Sections and Friends of the International Workers Association (IWA) about the development in France.

On October 12, over 20000 Ukrainian students came to the streets to protest the decision of the government to allow public universities to introduce new burdening fees. A total of 15 cities were protesting, from the West to the East of the country. Major rallies were held in Kiev, Lviv, Kharkov, Uzhhorod and Simferopol. Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhitomir, Kamyanets-Podolsk, Sumy, Khmelnitsky, Kirovograd, Lugansk, Lutsk and Sevastopol were protesting as well.

We have received an initiative from "Los Solidarios" in Peru and enclose a leaflet they have made. The terrific working conditions and exploitation in the textile firm are described. The appeal is also directed to the consumers of the ZARA, a firm which has shops in many places of the world (www.zara.com), and also other firms that use Topy Topy as a sub-contractor as INDIDEX. There will be actions against the exploitation on Saturday October 9th!

With reference to the appeal from the International Secretary of the Spanish CNT-AIT, the Secretariat is receiving copies of support to the CNT-AIT and their  mobilizations for the General Strike tomorrow  Wednesday September 29. The Spanish workers  and the CNT-AIT need all  the support and solidarity they can get against the hard attacks that are planned by the Spanish Government!

The new labor reform that the PSOE is trying to introduce is the biggest aggression against workers rights that has been proposed in the post -Franco years of democracy.

The strike day should serve as a trigger to further and wider protests.

The CNT is sending a call for solidarity to all union organizations to support the workers' struggle on the day of the General Strike, September 29, 2010.

The Capitalist system is in crisis and there are attacks on all fronts against  the workers conditions and rights. Goverments are desperate, and they are playing dangerous cards, as the Berlusconi government that in 2008 started a witch-hunt against the Roma people and immigrants, and now the Sarkozy government in France that is deporting the Roma.