Statement from the Proletariat and Working Class Movement (Movimiento de Obreros y Trabajadores Clasistas -MOTC), organization generated by the Communist Party of Perú (PCP) in the cities.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

FOR A PROLETARIAN LINE IN THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT

We greet the combative indefinite general strike carried out by the State workers nationwide, especially the oil workers of "Petro Peru" in Talara and the miners of "Centromin" who are fighting, resisting and repelling the imperialist International Monetary Fund's (IMF) privatization plan currently implemented by the murderer Fujimori.

We persist in our struggle for living wages, against the massive lay offs, salary caps and the blatant repression against the people in general and the working class in particular. We salute the unmasking and defeat of revisionist agents within the working class who attempted to reduce the worker's demands to a "dialogue" with the dictatorship and its rubber-stamp Congress during the last general strikes. In spite of these traitorous acts of revisionism, the workers are persisting the fight until the defeat of the dictatorship's policies of hunger and misery.

To better understand the problem of wages, let us first review some matters dealt with by Marxism:

I. THE VALUE OF THE WORK FORCE

In "Wages, Price and Profit" and "Wage Labor and Capital" our founder Karl Marx asks: What is, then, the value of the labor power of the work force? It is the same as any merchandise. This value is determined by the amount needed for its production. A man's labor power exists exclusively due to his living existence. And in order to survive and develop, man needs to consume a certain number of basic goods. But men, the same as machines, are used up after a period of time and must be replaced by others. Besides the basic goods needed for his own survival, man needs another quantity of the same goods to raise a number of children that will replace him/her in the labor market and will assure the continuation of the working force. Besides, it is necessary to dedicate another amount of goods to the development of its labor power and the acquisition of certain skills.

In Peru, the value of the labor power of the work force is measured by the Consumer Price Index (IPC) or the "shopping baskets" that were established through surveys beginning in 1987. Let's look the IPC and its effects on the working class during the fascist Fujimori government which has implemented the most brutal liberal economic policies imposed by U.S. imperialism through its tools the IMF and World Bank.

1. The total expenditures in food, clothing, rent, fuel and electricity, transportation and communication that are indispensable expenses, are not covered at all by the wages earned. As a result, the misery of our people grows.

2. We must pay anyway for the expenses listed in item 1 whose costs rise periodically. What happens is that the quality and quantity of food, clothing, etc. is worse every day. Our salaries are not sufficient to cover costs of meat, milk, eggs, fruits and other sources of basic nutrients which have disappeared from the diet of our people who are barely surviving. The economic situation of people involved in manual labor is critical, and even worse is the situation of the peasantry, especially the poorer peasants.

3. This deteriorating situation has worsened during the regime of Fujimori, popularly known in Peru as the "Cholera President." And will become worse in the foreseeable future if we don't defend our wages, especially if the Yankee imperialists, big bourgeoisie and the landowners are not defeated all over Peru by the vigorous and expanding People's War led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). That's the only way in which power will be conquered for the proletariat and the people.

II. WAGES

Let's quote Marx on the definition of wages: "Wages are nothing more than a special name used to designate the price of labor...the special name for that merchandise that only materializes in the flesh and blood of man...Therefore, labor power is merchandise that its owner, the wage worker sells to capital. What for? To live on."

The relationship between the amount of goods and man's salary is defined by Marx as follows: "...But neither the nominal wages `the amount of money of labor power' nor the real wages `the amount of goods that this amount of money can buy' totally exhaust the relationships concerning wages." And most importantly: "Wage is determined above all by its relationship with profits which is the benefit obtained by the capitalists. Then, proportionally speaking it is a relative wage."

From the above, wage is the "price of labor power" and the worker sells it "in order survive." In it we must differentiate between nominal wage, in our case the total amount of money for which the worker sells his labor power to the capitalists, and the real salary which is the amount of goods that we can purchase with it. As we have seen in Peru this is not enough to eat, and every day it is being cut even more to expand the profits of the voracious private capital. In sum, it is above all a relative wage.

In this context, we must take into account that the billions of dollars Fujimori and his predecessors have given away as profits to the imperialists, mainly Yankee, to the big bourgeoisie and landlords through the "economic measures" has been at the expense of the growing poverty of our people. This is also at the expense of our diminishing real wages not to mention relative wages.

Therefore, in our country the problem can only be solved by the Democratic Revolution led by the proletariat through its Communist Party (PCP), by defeating and smashing the power of the big bourgeoisie, the imperialists and big landowners and conquering power for the proletariat and the people with more People's War and developing a powerful People's Army of L:iberation as President Gonzalo and President Mao taught us.

III. THE NEED FOR STRUGGLE

"The capitalists can impose cuts in our wages, the truth of the matter is that they constantly try...hence the workers must react justly and correctly against it. They also act correctly when they fight and extract raises in their wages, because every reaction against a cut in wages should be an action for their increase." So, it is correct to counterattack with a fight for better wages when the capitalist tries to cut our wages, since the wish of the capitalist is to pocket as much as possible. On the other hand, "if the limits given to wages (salary caps) is dependant simply on the willingness of the capitalist, then it can also change against his willingness. The matter is reduced, therefore, to the problem of the respective strength of the contenders."

The true education of the masses can never be separated from the political struggle, and above all, it cannot be separated from the revolutionary struggle of the masses themselves. Only the struggle educates the exploited masses, only the struggle discovers the depth of their strength; it broadens their horizons; it raises their capacity; it clarifies their intelligence and it forges their will.

The Fujimori government is reducing real wages by conducting massive firings of workers in order to facilitate more profits to multinational investors. Thus, the capitalists pocket as much as they can with the complicity of a sellout regime that establishes salary caps and cuts. For this reason, workers and working people in general must force increases in wages against the will of the puppet regime and its "economic measures" that make collective bargaining irrelevant. The task is to defend the rights, benefits and conquests of the people with armed and general strikes like the one we are currently developing in preparation for the insurrections in the cities. If we don't fight, we will lose the few benefits won to this date. The less we fight, the more they take away from us. We must keep up the struggle for the conquest of power for the proletariat and the people on the route to the final goal: Communism.

IV. THE CHARADE OF "ECONOMIC SUCCESS."

It is nothing more than a propaganda campaign to increase tourism and the plundering of the country by imperialism. The fact of the matter is that during this regime the earnings of an additional 5 million people fell below the poverty level. More than half of school children are chronically malnourished. Malnutrition is worse in rural areas where generally there is no potable water, electricity or sewage system. Not to mention the areas bordering the neighboring states; they are completely forgotten by the old State. More than 75% of Peru's 23 million people live in acute poverty, and more than 85% of the work force is either unemployed or underemployed.

However, the fascist dictatorship (like its predecesors in the past) claims that the "minimum wage has gone up", "unemployment has been reduced" and "re-investment achieved" these claims go along with their dream: "Sendero is contained or defeated." As Marx taught us we must not let ourselves be fascinated by the high sounding claims of increase in salary. The key issue by which any increase must be measured is in relation to what type of wage and from what original wage base. The result is that our wages are equivalent to those of 20 years ago!

And how about the rise in prices during the last 5 years. The fact of the matter is that with each capitalist economic readjustment, wages were cut. Every time the capitalists fool us to "sacrifice today for a better tomorrow" or "belt tightening", wages have been diminished. We verify this fact every time we go to the food market: "you may go with more money there but purchase less than before, and of worse quality."

We fight for an increase in wages and against privatization. This unmasks revisionism that seeks "dialogue" and wants to "fight" for coffee breaks, promotions, rankings (homologation), acknowledgement for good behavior, that are nothing more than crumbs which are within the IMF-Fujimori plan.

We must fight in defense of the syndicates (unions) of the class and the proletariat, because without the unions there can not be strikes. We must sweep away and crush the governments parallel unions and the "paramilitary rondas" they unleash to break our strikes. As Marx has taught us, the fundamental principle of any union is to trust only the strength of the class and not to trust the state, which is only the tool of the ruling class. Do not trust promises, trust only the strength of unity and the consciousness of the class.

Consequently, we must smash revisionism that collaborates with Fujimori seeking co-optation, "dialogue" and electoral trafficking. We must fight the massive layoffs in the State companies being sold out to imperialism which began with the APRA government and intensified under Fujimori. This struggle is indispensable for the defense of our rights and to serve the conquest of power for the proletariat and the people. For this reason, we must go deep into the masses and workers, into their neighborhoods and slums to explain the problems we face and to gain support for the success of the uninterrupted strike that is being developed. We must take advantage of all possible government hesitations and also the divisions or collisions within the reactionary camp , the big bourgeoisie (the comprador and the bureaucratic factions) in order to accentuate the pressure in the area of economic struggle as well as in the political arena. But as the great Lenin teaches us: "The working class must maintain the revolutionary directives intact precisely to take advantage of the situation."

Lima, Perú.

¡Viva el PCP!

Translated and Published by Perú People's Movement (MPP), February 1996.