THE City Council of Acharnes, one the local councils of the Greater Athens area, with a population of over 100,000 voted on Thursday to suspend all its services and functions ‘indefinitely’ because it does not have the finances to pay wages or bills.
It is the first local council in Greece to shut down due to the huge cuts in funds by central local government.
Last Thursday the Greek government announced that 48 Inland Revenue offices are to be closed throughout the country. Inland Revenue workers staged a national strike on Friday and are considering further action.
Metro workers and engineering workers demonstrated in Athens on Thursday in protest against wage cuts and ‘flexible’ working conditions. Hospital doctors and judges are continuing their stoppages also against the planned reduction of their salaries.
All Greek national trade union federations have pledged support for the one-day general strike next Wednesday September 26, called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) against the government’s austerity measures and specifically against unemployment and wage cuts.
But in many unions there are demands for an indefinite strike action, such as from the Salonica metro construction workers who issued a statement for indefinite action.
The Revolutionary Marxist League (RML), the Greek Section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, has issued a call for the 26 September strike to be turned into an indefinite general strike.
It warned that ‘The parliamentary junta of the three government coalition parties is getting ready to implement the new austerity measures dictated by the troika of EC-IMF-ECB for mass sackings, starvation wages, the destruction of public health, welfare and state education.
‘The troika demands the abolition of the minimum wage and a 6-day 12-hours per day working week under a regime of total lack of rights and safety regulations.’
It adds: ‘One of the troika’s bosses, the president of the German industrialists Hans-Peter Keitel has proposed the transformation of the whole of Greece into a special economic zone which will be ruled by European Commission Officers. Greece has become a guinea pig for the rest of the eurozone.’
It urges: ‘What is required is a political, indefinite general strike along with People’s Assemblies, occupations and demonstrations, a United Front of Resistance, for the overthrow of the government, the troika and capitalism. . . . The only solution for workers is the socialist revolution for the foundation of a workers and small farmers socialist government.’
