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Greece: call of work-floor trade unions for the strike
Greek - 13.12.2010 14:51
On Wednesday 15/12, there is a new national strike in Greece. It is called by the 2 union confederations (GSEE and ADEDY). There is an initiative of work-floor trade unions that tries to give a more radical character to the strike. This is their call.
COORDINATION OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR WORK-FLOOR TRADE UNIONS
To all trade unions of the public and private sector of the Attica region
DECLARATION OF THE ATTICA-REGION ASSEMBLY
- There is a full-scale attack launched by the PASOK government, the EU and the IMF. With this new ‘Shock and Awe’ operation, they attempt with ‘one-go’ to abolish the rights of the working people, to privatize the provision of social welfare and to legalize employer terrorism and repression at the workplace.
- By introducing a series of new laws, they aim at privatizing the public and municipal enterprises, health care and education. At the level of employment relations, they aim at replacing the sectoral collective employment agreements by personal employment agreements that will approximate to modern era slavery. Poverty, unemployment and precarious employment will dramatically increase.
- Hand in hand with the hateful ‘Troika’ (EU-ECB-IMF) that serves the interests of usurer-lenders of Greece, they introduce the most unpopular yearly budget of the last decades! They cut dramatically the spending in social welfare (the budget for education, health care and the public enterprises will be cut by more than €4 billion), the wages and benefits in the public and the private sector, the public investments and the funding of municipalities. The tax burden on the working people increases by €7.8 billion by raising the VAT, the tax on heating petrol etc.
- On the other hand, they offer provoking gifts to the capital. They offer extra tax exemptions to employers, they are subsidizing with tax-payers’ money the employer’s contributions on workers’ pensions as well as part of the salaries of new hires, they are abolishing the authorities’ monitoring of employer compliance to the law in the name of fighting bureaucracy. They also increase the spending for serving the state debt. In 2011, they will spend €62 billion to pay the debt and the rent associated to it. This amounts to more than €1 billion per week! Excluding the debt payments, the budget deficit of €20 billion would immediately turn into a surplus. The tax rate on company profits will be reduced from 24% to 20%. This will result into a decrease of state income by at least €535 million. At the same time, the spending on armaments for the sake of NATO and the arms-merchants as well as the spending on the repression means continue.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
There is no way out with these policies. They have declared a class-war on us to overcome the capitalist crisis. They are using our lives for the next 20 years as collateral to maximize the profits of the businesses and to serve the interests of the lenders and the bankers. They want to reduce the price of our labour because we ‘cost too much’ and we provide counter-incentives for their investments. The policies of this government cannot persuade any worker. Their power that is fully enforced by the media has started being questioned. Even the workers in the media have started to clash with the media-barons against layoffs and the abolishment of their collective employment agreements.
Let’s transform the anger to a movement that will overthrow the regime.
On the 15/12, we go on strike!
- To fight against the ‘memorandum’ and the attack of the government against our rights!
- To declare that we will not pay their crisis, we will not become the victims of the ‘new economic development’, which the capital and its corrupted political representatives are preparing.
- To declare that we will rise up against the government, the EU, the IMF, the dictatorship of the free market and the outrageous violation of the will of the people.
- To declare that we will not pay the state debt to the usurers.
- To refuse the policy of devaluing the working people. The government and its parrots call us ‘lazy’, ‘guilds with privileges’, ‘counter-productive’, “corruption addicts” and ‘irresponsible’. All these being true, one would assume that the wealth of this country is only produced by managers, brokers and usurers…
- To get the struggle on our own hands. We need to do so because the bureaucracy of the trade-union confederations (GSEE and ADEDY ) has betrayed us! At the same time that an unprecedented social war is waged, they make full-scale agreements with the employers’ confederation (SEB) and the government to ensure …social stability. Their declared aim is to save the “borrowing ability of the country”.
- To achieve the joint struggle of workers on the ground of their common class-defined interests against the continuous blackmails of the employers, the government and the ‘Troika’. We proceed by organizing assemblies at workplaces or sectors and by coordinating our struggle within and across sectors. We decisively escalate our actions with long-lasting strikes just as the sailors and their colleagues in the municipalities in order to block the unpopular austerity measures. We are aware that the struggle will continue after the general strike of the 15/12.
- To stop layoffs and to block budget cuts. We demand the reduction of working hours to 7 per day/35 per week. We demand the reduction of retirement age to create new vacancies. We demand the unemployment benefit to be equal to the minimum wage and to be provided for the whole period that the worker remains in unemployment. We demand the government and the banks to erase the debts of the unemployed. We demand the full provision of free health care to the unemployed.
- Abolishment of all forms of flexible employment. Every full-time job should be hold by one single worker.
– To block all privatizations in public or municipal enterprises, health care and education. Instead of promoting the ‘fast track’ private investments, we demand public investments in favour of the people. These investments should be environmental-friendly and subjected to the full control of the society. They should aim to the stimulation of the real economy in order to create new jobs. We demand the nationalization of banks and enterprises with strategic importance to the economy.
- To demand increases in wages and pensions. To preserve the collective employment agreements and the public goods.
WE CAN ONLY DEFEAT THE GOVERNMENT, THE EU, THE IMF AND THE EMPLOYERS WITH A LONG-LASTING STRUGGLE OF THE WORKERS!
A STRUGGLE IN THE HANDS OF THE WORK-FLOOR TRADE UNIONS AND NOT THE HANDS OF THE ‘EAGER’ COFEDERATIONISTS!
The work-floor trade unions that participated in the Attica-region assembly:
1) Union of Workers in the Athens National Airport Companies
2) Union of DHL EXPRESS (HELLAS) workers
3) Union of ETHNODATA workers
4) Union of CPS workers
5) Union of Doctors working in Private Hospitals (Athens-Piraeus)
6) Union of Workers of the National Theatre
7) Union of workers in editorial houses, bookstores and printing industry,
8) Union of Teachers working in Private Coaching Schools
9) Union of Technicians and Engineers
10) 3rd ELME of Athens (Public Sector Secondary Education teachers)
11) “Nikaia Hospital” Committee of the Union of Doctors working in Public Hospitals (Athens-Piraeus)
12) “Red Cross Hospital” Committee of the Union of Doctors working in Public Hospitals (Athens-Piraeus)
13) Union of workers in Private Sector Health Institutes of Piraeus
14) 5th ELME of Athens (Public Sector Secondary Education teachers)
15) Union of Public Sector Primary Education Teachers “Aristotle”
16) Union of Public Sector Primary Education Teachers “Parthenon”
17) Union of Public Sector Primary Education Teachers in Ano Liossia – Zefiri
18) Union of contract employed Archaeologists
19) National Union of workers in Vocational Education
20) Union of workers in the Nea Ionia Municipally
21) Union of workers in the Renewable Sources and Energy Centre
22) Intersectoral Media workers Initiative
23) Union of workers in the Glyka Nera Municipally
24) 3rd ELME of West Athens (Public Sector Secondary Education teachers)
25) Union of workers in Postal Service Companies in Attika
26) ELME of Ano Liossia - Zefiri – Fyli (Public Sector Secondary Education teachers)
27) Union of Public Sector Primary Education Teachers “K. Sotiriou”
28) 1st ELME of West Athens (Public Sector Secondary Education teachers)
29) Union of workers in MOD co.
30) National Union of Contract employed and Unemployed Αgriculturist
31) National Union of Unemployed Teachers
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| Lees meer over: europa wereldcrisis | | aanvullingen | | All I want for Christmas is an indefinite Eur | nn - 14.12.2010 18:54
All I want for Christmas is an indefinite European General Strike!
Seven general strikes in Greece in a single year; the biggest student movement Italy has seen in years and by far the largest one in the UK for the last decade at least; riots raging through France; thousands taking to the streets of Dublin, of Lisbon and most European capitals…
Consent is over. There is little of a Christmas spirit in the air this year, more of a spirit of rage and dissent. On December 15th, mainstream trade unions across Europe are calling for a day of action against austerity. A day of action is a start, but it’s not enough. Austerity and the crisis are cutting through all aspects of our everyday existence and our reaction should be as widespread, and as wild.
We need an indefinite European General Strike.
Let’s take back our lives!
 Website: http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/
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