SOME 5,000 local government workers, teachers, hospital workers, university staff, civil servants, along with pensioners and university students participated last Tuesday in a militant strike rally outside the Vouli (Greek parliament).
The strike and protest was against yet another barbaric austerity pro-war Budget by the right wing government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
ADEDY (public sector federation of trades unions) had called a 24-hour strike along with the POE-OTA local government workers’ trade union.
Union leaders reported that participation in the strike was the highest in recent years.
The Budget is an all-out attack to decimate local government workforce and smash up and privatise the National Health Service and state hospitals, merge or close university departments, transform many state schools in working class areas into so-called ‘model’ schools under business’ supervision, impose reactionary ‘evaluation’ on universities staff and civil servants which is designed to lead to the sacking of many thousands.
The pro-war Budget states that more than 5% of its total expenditure is devoted to the military as dictated by NATO and US President Trump.
Last week, the Greek government agreed to buy rocket launchers and missiles from Israel costing 700 million euros.
The Budget’s finance cuts to local authorities will mean the sacking of all workers on temporary contracts who form the majority of local councils’ workforce. It will lead to the collapse of many council services including schools.
Already 26% of all Greek families live in poverty, according to ELSTAT the Greek State Statistics, and over 52% cannot manage to pay the monthly household bills and rent.
Most workers in Greece, in either the public or private sectors, earn an average of just 1,000 euros a month, when rent is 300-400 euros a month bills 150 euros and food prices have skyrocketed.
At the public workers’ rally outside the Vouli, the President of the POE-OTA Nikos Tragas, as well as trade unionists from hospitals and schools, called for the overthrow of the Mitsotakis government.
The speakers said that this is the time along with the farmers’ blockades to get rid of ‘the Mitsotakis government of destitution’.
Tragas, well known for his refusal to fight the government local government cuts and sackings, now poses as a leader in the fight to overthrow the Mitsotakis government.
This is due to the huge anger of the working class and the hatred against Mitsotakis.
Workers have to defend jobs and services and they have come to realise that to do this they have to overthrow Mitsotakis.
Close by to the public sector workers’ rally, Greek mayors staged a protest meeting outside the main gate of the Vouli demanding no cuts.
The PAME, the trade union sector of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) held its own rally of some 3,500 workers last Tuesday evening.
PAME leaders, who have won the majority of the ADEDY, refused to join the day’s strike meeting.
The PAME speakers at the evening rally called for a struggle against ‘the warmongering Budget’ but refrained to call for the overthrow of the Mitsotakis government.
Meanwhile, farmers all over Greece have entered the third week of the protests with setting up more tractor blockades on the motorways and national roads as well as driving their tractors into cities and holding rallies outside government offices and governing party’s New Democracy parliamentary deputies.
Mass meetings at farmers’ blockades have rejected Mitsotakis’ call for dialogue stating that they are only interested in the government satisfying their demands.
Mitsotakis has been forced to make some concessions, reducing electricity and petrol prices for farmers, but the blockades rejected this as pittance.
Farmers’ main demands as sent to Mitsotakis are:
‘1. Stop state repression, authoritarianism and taking farmers to court – cancel all police and prosecutors’ lawsuits against farmers who take part in the mobilisations.
‘2. We demand here and now the payment by the government of all owed subsidies to farmers.
‘3. Guaranteed prices that cover the cost of production and leave a sustainable income to cover livelihood needs and cultivation expenses.
‘4. Reduction of production costs. Tax-free petrol at the pump, cap on the price of agricultural electricity at 7 cents/Kwh and abolition of the Energy Exchange, abolition of VAT.
‘5. Replenishment of lost income for 2025 for all products whose prices have collapsed below the cost of production.
‘6. Carry out the necessary infrastructure projects that the agricultural movement demands in each region (e.g. irrigation and flood/fire protection, rural road construction, etc.).
‘7. Reduce farmers’ taxation.
‘8. Stop the mass import of agricultural products without tariffs, against Mercosur and other EU agreements.
‘10. Freeze farmers’ debts.
‘11. There should be no reduction in EU’s CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) funds, there should be no resources for war preparations.
‘12. Immediately double agricultural pensions.
‘13. Vaccination of livestock animals, full compensation for killed animals.
‘14. Greek Agricultural Organisation OPEKEPE fraud: The money that was stolen should be returned and shared with the real beneficiaries us farmers, we will not pay the fines. Political and criminal responsibilities should be attributed and the names should be made public. Reorganisation of OPEKEPE.’
In the port of Piraeus seafarers on Ro-Ro (large vehicle transport ferries) are continuing their strike with 100% participation.
At a strike meeting, they voted to extend their strike for Wednesday and Thursday (17th and 18th December) demanding a dangerous cargo allowance of 15%, two days off a month, and no transportation of military vehicles.
- Elsewhere, in Spain, the issue of housing affordability in the EU is ‘topical and urgent’, with nearly every fifth European currently at risk of poverty and social isolation, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez stated on Wednesday.
‘Meanwhile, 93 million Europeans, or every fifth, live at risk of poverty and social isolation.
‘And this is not just the opinion of experts or organisations: About half of Europeans consider the housing issue topical and urgent,’ he wrote in an op-ed for the European publication Politico.
According to the prime minister, there are two main reasons behind the housing crisis in the EU.
The first is that after the financial crisis in 2008, investment in housing construction dropped sharply, creating a situation where demand exceeds supply in the community.
The second reason, according to Sanchez, is ‘housing speculation’, where a flat is viewed not as a place to live but as a valuable asset that, for example, can be rented out to tourists.
The Spanish prime minister warned that ‘housing, which must be a right for everyone, has turned into a trap that defines people’s present, deprives them of a future, and poses risks to unity, economic dynamism and prosperity in Europe.’
Sanchez called for the implementation of ‘urgent measures’ because the housing crisis is already ‘resonating across Europe’ and becoming ‘a new factor of Euroscepticism’.
Europeans need ‘concrete solutions’ immediately, the prime minister believes.
Earlier, the newspaper El Pais reported that the European Commission (EC) is finalising the first package of EU measures to address the housing crisis, which affects many member countries.
The plan is expected to include initiatives on regulating tourist rentals in the EU, making the rules of state aid more flexible, and allowing unused funds from the so-called fund of unity to be used for the construction of state or affordable housing.
According to the publication, discussions are complex.
Some capitals, including Paris and Berlin, have expressed doubts about the EC’s authority to propose measures on an issue they consider a national matter.
