Petro Symonenko, leder for Ukrainas Kommunistiske Parti, redegjør for situasjonen i Ukraina og situasjonen for den ukrainske arbeiderklassen.
Talen ble gitt til World Federation of Trade Unions 17. kongress i Durban, Sør-Afrika, 5-8. oktober 2016.

I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to inform this Congress on the socio-economic situation of workers and state of the trade union movement in Ukraine.

According to the Congress delegates the trade unions of the capitalist countries fighting for the workers rights face fierce resistance from the bourgeois institutions of power, protecting the only interests of capital.

Let me propose you analysis of the socio-economic and political transformations that have taken place in Ukraine after the USSR collapse.

It is obvious that all reforms in Ukraine during past decades were aimed exclusively at the elimination of the socialist gains and the restoration of capitalism.

As a result, the state of the defense of workers' interests has become a defender of the interests of capitalists. Public property that ensured before implementation of state social programs, and practically owned by workers was captured by the oligarchs and has become the instrument of their enrichment based on the ruthless exploitation of labour.

It led to the destruction of high-tech industries. Hundreds of thousands of skilled workers have been thrown out. To search job they were forced to becom a small traders, middlemen, laborers, low-paid staff.

According to various estimates more than 7 million citizens of Ukraine are migrant workers, one in ten is unemployed. And among young people - one in five. Only Poland for the first half of 2016 has given the Ukrainians 700 thousand work visas!

As a result of the depreciation of fixed assets up to 85 % domestic producer has lost not only external markets, but also with the space speed is loosing domestic one. More than 80% of goods and services in Ukraine are imported.

Due to the efforts of the international capital and the comprador bourgeoisie, Ukraine is converted into an agrarian and raw material appendage.

Cooperation with the WTO and the IMF has driven Ukraine into debt that is almost equal to the annual GDP

Prices and tariffs imposed by the requirements of the IMF exceed the real incomes of most citizens. Average monthly salary does not exceed 150 USD, the pension does not reach 50, and the communal fee for the studio! apartment is up to $ 100 per month. The salary debt is about 80 million Dollars.

According to official data half of the population is unable to pay for housing. New bourgeois Housing Code of Ukraine provides for the forced eviction for communal debts.

We Communists, state that the so called reforms are actually nothing more than a social genocide.
The situation in the economy and workers' rights has worsened as a result of an armed coup in February 2014, organized and funded by the Department of State. The oligarchic dictatorship, based on the neo-Nazi and neo-fascist gangs was established in Ukraine. They unleashed a fratricidal civil war in the country. This regime is guilty for loss of Krimea and part of the Donbass and more than 20% of the industrial potential of the country, loss of the Russian market: 15 billion USD for 2 years and 60% of Ukrainian exports of mechanical engineering.

Targeted attack of oligarchic regime on freedom and workers' rights in Ukraine, led to a total social degradation (transformation of the proletariat in prekariat) and political degradation of the working class.

Naturally, all the above processes have hurt both the organizational structures of trade unions, and all over the trade union movement.

Today we could only admit that, trade union property worth tens of billions of dollars was sold or stolen with direct participation of the trade-union leaders.

Today in Ukraine the trade union movement is in a state of social and political coma.
Oligarchs could manage attract or buy some trade union leaders, to integrate them into the bourgeois system and use in their interests.

New-old trade-union bosses rejected the real fight for the rights of the working man. For a quarter of a century - almost no trade union protest was organized against onerous working conditions, against rising prices for decent wages, etc. Basically union protests mostly headed by the so called independent trade unions were and are ordered and financed by oligarchs for squeezing out of budget money to support their control industries and to further enrich themselves at the expense of stealing of workers.

Trade union bosses did nothing, to raise the people to protest as it was in France even against adoption of new enslaving Labour code.

So called "increase" in 2016 in wages and pensions - by 12% with an increase in communal tariffs by 600%, - show the cynicism of capitalist politics.

To prevent any social protest, criminal-oligarchic regime in cooperation with neo-Nazis uses violent suppression of any protest of the oppressed classes, the suppression of any dissent for the final elimination of socials gains of workers, remains of the trade union movement. Some trade-unions bosses directly cooperate with the pro-fascist structures of the ruling regime.

Therefore state budget expenditures for the law inforcement in 2017 will exceed cumulative expenditures for culture, science, education, medicine and social programs!
Emploees, afraid to loose the job, their life and freedom are passive and ready to go to conciliation with employers.

This is a result of that the social-class structure of the Ukrainian society for more than two decades of bourgeois restoration has undergone certain transformations. Sutation in Ukraine proofs that fundamental contradiction between "labor" and "capital is impossible to solve without a radical change in social relations, restoration of the socialist principles of management and public administration. It is not possible without the return of power to the working people.
I believe that the joint efforts of trade unions with the Communists, "left" parties and movements (despite all their diversity and internal contradictions), the combination of the struggle for social rights with the struggle for the political power are a necessary conditions for the victory of labor people and justice.

Defending the interests of the exploiters pro-fascist regime in Ukraine actively imposes into the workers movement myths about the "political indifference", "political independence" of the trade unions. As is known, the Communist Party protects the interests of the working people in Ukraine and that is why the oligarchs are doing everything to separate Communists and trade unions, to ban the Communist Party. They use against us against our friends and associates all means of its repressive machine, carry out the physical and moral terror. More over 400criminal cases are started. Some of them are still under the jail.

Dear participants of the Congress!
It is very important to inform the workers that war crimes of capital, numerous armed conflicts in various parts of the world, militarism, terrorism and violence caused only by a profound crisis of the capitalist system, and bring with them untold suffering to the people all over the world.

For Ukraine, the problem is exacerbated by pro-fascist nature of the regime, which eliminates democratic principles, sabotages the implementation of the Minsk agreements, fanning the flames of civil war in the Donbass, which creates a real danger of it escalating into a large-scale war that could break out of the Ukraine and blow up the situation not only in Europe but also in the World .
The revival of a genuine unions is one of the key tasks of the CPU Programme. In this regard, let me propose to the participants of the Congress, to the leadership of the WFTU to establish with the assistance and support of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the framework of the the European Office the subregional office for coordination of the actions of trade union organizations on the territory of post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe.

The entire course of world development requires a radical increase in the political activity of the working class, strengthen its organization, overcoming the split in the trade union movement, feelings of hopelessness and defeatism.

We –the communists of Ukraine believe in the victory of workers and of our side would struggle for the trade unions of Ukraine to revive and become fighting, organized, free from social compromise, from the domination of the trade union bureaucracy.

I believe that the work and decisions of this Congress will be a milestone in the improvement of the internationalism and solidarity, development and strengthening of the global trade union movement, the preservation and consolidation of peace in the world!
Together we win!!

Viva the WFTU – real vanguard of the working class!
Thank you for attention.