Third International Automotive Workers' Conference will be held in India at the end of November 2025
1 March 2024: Dear colleagues, at the 6th online meeting on January 28, 2024, the International Coordination Group (ICOG) unanimously accepted the application of trade union federations from India to hold the Third International Automotive Workers' Conference (3rd IAC) in India. The exact location will be determined by the end of June 2024. We look forward to your active support, global mobilization and participation of delegations from all over the world. ICOG is focusing its work on the preparation of the 3rd IAC. This conference is self-organized and financially independent. A call for donations and sponsors will be distributed.
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Country reports from Brazil, India, South Africa and Germany were presented at the ICOG meeting. The struggle for higher wages and for every job is an urgent issue for everyone. But political demands for labour rights (India), against privatization policies, for the rights of indigenous peoples and protection of the Amazon region (Brazil) and against imperialist wars and global environmental catastrophe (South Africa/Germany) were also addressed. The critical support of the call for a day against imperialist wars, on the occasion of 2 years of war in Ukraine on February 24, 2024, was decided. ICOG declares its solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle and calls on Israel to immediately stop the war in Gaza.
The ICOG agreed that the environmental issue should be a significant focus at the 3rd IAC. We can learn from the declaration of the 3rd International Miners' Conference at the end of August 2023. On April 20/21, 2024, the ICOG will participate in the Environmental Strategy Conference in Berlin, Germany.
The ICOG self-critically discussed its solidarity work on the 6-week strike by the UAW at the "Big Three" GM, Stellantis and Ford in the US. Although it had written letters of solidarity, it had not sufficiently fulfilled the requirement that no struggle should stand alone. As a direct result, only a few solidarity activities took place outside the US.
The ICOG issued a declaration of solidarity with the strike against Elon Musk and Tesla in Sweden and its support from other trade unions in Scandinavia.
The wave of announcements at Bosch, ZF, Continental, Magna and many other suppliers that thousands of jobs will be destroyed is a challenge to the workforces to fight for every job and not allow themselves to be played off against each other. In particular, the workforces must deal with a social-chauvinist mode of thinking that plays workers off against each other instead of organizing for common struggle and international workers' and trade unions' unity.
The ICOG discussed the need to improve general cooperation and coordination of struggles. It calls for current reports and experiences from the lives and struggles of automotive workers and their families from all over the world to be made available to all interested people via the homepage.
With solidarity greetings
International Coordination Group
of the International Automotive Workers' Coordination
Attachment:
Country reports from India, Brazil, South Africa, Germany for 6th ICOG Online Meeting
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