Wednesday, March 19, 2008

GENERAL STRIKE IN GREECE

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GREEK WORKERS ON FIRE

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The right conservative government pushes the workers into a GENERAL strike due to some
ridiculous and dangerous anti-worker changes in the social insurance system which will be validated? tomorrow in the Parliament.
The previous weeks there were massive strikes from the workers at the Public Company of Electricity from the Dustmen,and others....
The whole working society disapprove these changes and this awful government(N.D.) sending
a message to them and to the ex- government party(P.A.S.O.K.), which share the same
goals with the government party,that at the next elections it will be difficult for them to manage
a sufficient majority in the next Parliament.On the other hand the people
started to sympathize the 2 reformist left parties giving to them their vote in the researches which are taking place in Greece these days.
Take a look at a recent research:

N.D. 28,7% (the conservative party)
PASOK 24,1%(the socialistic????party)
SYN 17,5%(the European left party)http://www.syn.gr/en/index.htm
ΚΚΕ 7,2% (the communistic party)
LAOS 4,4%. (the nationalist right party)

and now take a look at the results of the last year's national elections:

N.D. 41,83%
PASOK 38,1%
KKE 8,15%
SYN 5,04%
LAOS 3,8%

The party of the European Left made an increase of 12,46% by taking votes from people who traditionally were on the PASOK party.

The election of a left president in Cyprus is still fresh .The increase of the European left party
in Greece is obvious.The revolutionary left is still small in Greece.In the reformist system
the choice of SYN or KKE is unfortunately the only choice,without self delusions,for the workers
and for the left people.
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The state and your boss remind you: "Working makes you free" ("arbeit macht frei")

After a long time of waiting for the new "reform" of the social insurance system, the final details were finally announced at the 6th of March.

The government, claiming that the fake negotiations with the labor came to a dead end, is about to smash thousands of employees, forcing them to work until their late years, giving a tiny pension to those who will finally manage to get old enough to receive them.

The merge of the pension funds aims to stake the adverse balance of the state fund; an advert balance that has been created because of the uninsured working positions and the skipping of the social insurance fees and the tax evasion by the industrialists and the employers.

The employees will have to turn gradually to the private insurance and health care. The unemployment will rise, since many employees will be forced to stay in duty until they meet the new augmented age limits, while others will have to queue up for along period, being unemployed.

Those who have been targeted by the government for being financially privileged are the young mothers, the precarious workers, the entire private sector after all; all these, according to the policy-makers are being overpaid, full of privileges and working rights. All this defines nothing but the final and the worst attack of the Capital against the working rights and the income of the employees. An attack which started in 1991 with Sioufa's law, went on in 2002 with Reppas' law and is about to be concluded(?) now with this unacceptable draft law including hundreds of articles, which will have to be voted urgently on Thursday the 20th of March.
Employees and students militantly react to the reforms with long strikes and occupations.
  • A general strike with a big demonstration has been declared for Wednesday the 19th of March
  • In the electricity company, is trying to prove the strike illegal. A lot of regional blackouts take place, since the strike is still going on.
  • The workers in the Municipalities, including the garbage collection, with repeated 48hr strikes; despite the strike breaking mechanism organized by the government in Athens and in Volos.
  • Dozens of university faculties have been occupied by the students
http://athens.indymedia.org/?lang=en

4 comments:

Frank Partisan said...

You should get in touch with my comrades.

Very interesting post.

It looks like the left could win if not fragmented.

CHRIS I. G. said...

I know.I am almost at the same side with these people.In this article they analyze very good what I and others say in this political period:
"vote the reformist left parties without self-delusions"...

Frank Partisan said...

The idea of all left parrties to form a block, sure makes sense.

You should subscribe to their newspaper, and talk to them. I was a sympathizer before I joined. I went to meetings before I joined. I was at a conference and met them. They made more sense than the rest.

I think other Trotskyist groups carry on Trotsky's ideas. They carry on his dialectical method. We have political education at each meeting.

Anonymous said...

The Trotskyist groups have always a tendency to separate into smaller groups...