Solidarity Letter to the Workers of the Bicycle Factory “Bike System” in the Thuringian Nordhausen Area of Germany

You demonstrated with your action that if workers rely on their own power they are able to prevent the closing of the factory and the subsequent unemployment of the workers which is the outcome of the brutality of capitalism particularly in the form of Neo-Liberalism.  You demonstrated that workers are not terrified by the label “wildcat strike” which was invented by the world capitalists to prevent the struggle of workers against capital.  You also demonstrated that if the workers decide to self-manage the factory, it is managed better, that is, they are able to manage the production with a better quality and with fewer expenses.  You demonstrated that if workers are united they are able to overcome the competition and division, which are the results of the capitalist system and make the workers to fight against each other instead of fighting against this system. You demonstrated that united workers are able to manage the production based not on profit but on the needs of society.  Above all, your action demonstrated as an example and a model even a small one, that if workers unite and organize with their own power and subsequently make their struggle self-conscious are able to manage and direct the entire human society.

Fellow Class Members!

You are probably aware that workers at various points in time and in various places in the world are continually taking such actions.  It was a few years ago that the Brukman textile factory workers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, occupied the factory, and they consequently forced both the government and the courts to recognize the self-management of the factory by the workers.  Last year in Iran during the closing of many factories, in one of them,  Lorestan Refrigerator Factory in the city of Khorramabad, this idea was present among the workers that the government was bound to provide the necessary facilities for workers so that workers could run production. Therefore, your action is one of the working class struggle traditions against capitalism in the entire world.  However, the fundamental question is why do these kinds of anti-capitalist actions abate after a while or at most just delay the closing of the factory and unemployment of the workers?  The question is why these brave worker actions at various points in time and in various places in the world are not tied together and are not turned into a radical force for the decisive prevention of the closing of the factory and the unemployment of the workers?  The answer to this question in one word is that the workers do not have unity and organization that has the ability to push back the capitalist system and in the end to abolish it.  The majority of the working class in the world (including the workers in Iran) are without organization, let alone organization independent of capital and its government.  Furthermore, the other part of the working class in the world that is organized is under the rule of the reformist unions which do not intend to attack the capital.  This obvious picture which at the same time is very real shows that for the emancipation of capitalist miseries including unemployment workers have no way out but to organize into an anti-capitalist organization.

Worker Comrades of “Bike System” Factory!

Right now, a number of the anti-capitalist activists in Iran have put their aims and activity to form a country-wide anti-capitalist working class organization.  It is my duty as one of these activists, while sending my solidarity with your courage and bravery for occupying the factory and exerting the workers self-management, to invite you to form an anti-capitalist organization in your factory and attempt to connect with other anti-capitalist organizations in Germany in order to establish a country-wide anti-capitalist organization in Germany.  Forming a Workers International as the flag-bearer of a humane world without class oppression requires this path to be taken.

Please accept my solidarity, and shake your hand modestly and wish for victory,

Mohsen Hakimi

Worker-Activist

Iran

November 4, 2007