THE CALL for European-wide, co-ordinated strike action to defeat the EU ‘austerity’ measures made by the leader of the Greek TUC is a sure sign that the working class throughout Europe is on the march toward revolution.
The Greek power workers union YENOP, the most powerful union in Greece last Friday announced a programme of rolling 48-hour strikes by its members employed throughout the power industry, in response the GSEE (Greek TUC) leader Panagopoulos has called for a one-day general strike in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to coincide with a one-day general strike already called in Portugal for 14 November.
The call for joint action by workers across those countries being hammered by the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the Troika) in order to repay the billions of euros used to bail them out of bankruptcy has been forced out of the union bureaucracy by the determination of workers not to see their lives destroyed in order that the banks survive the crisis of world capitalism.
It comes after a period of unprecedented strike action across these countries.
The 48-hour rolling strikes called by YENOP are in anticipation of further savage cuts to pensions and wages being agreed this week by the right-wing coalition government under the orders of the Troika in order to secure a further 11.5 billion euros bail-out loan, without which the country will be bankrupted in weeks.
Along with this call for rolling action – in effect a national all-out strike – the executive of YENOP called for the GSEE to ‘escalate the struggle immediately with the aim of overthrowing the austerity measures’, and went on to demand the complete cancellation of Greece’s sovereign debt.
This, from a union that has been one of the mainstays of the GSEE which has fought tirelessly to restrict the struggle of the unions to one-day protests, represents the enormous pressure on the leadership from the working class.
The call to overthrow the austerity programme cannot be achieved without the overthrow of the government.
This was the demand of the massive one-day general strike on Wednesday last week where hundreds of thousands of workers marched through Athens demanding an indefinite general strike to bring down the government and defeat the Troika.
The day before, Spain was gripped by huge protests that saw tens of thousands of workers and youth surrounding parliament and being violently attacked by riot police as they protested about austerity cuts designed to reduce Spain’s debt by 65 billion euros in two years.
In Portugal, one million people took to the streets last month against austerity measures that include raising social contributions made by workers from 11% to 18%, a move that will slash one month’s pay a year from every worker.
Further cuts announced yesterday by the Portuguese government along with massive tax increases have led the largest union, CGTP, to call a general strike.
In Britain, the anger and determination of workers not to allow the coalition to destroy their lives and the Welfare State has forced the TUC to consider the ‘feasibility’ of organising a general strike, something the leadership vowed would never happen.
What is clear is that the revolutionary movement of the working class is sweeping Europe and the demand for indefinite general strike action, co-ordinated across the Continent, is taking hold.
Such action will pose immediately and directly the issue of power, of the working class overthrowing the entire rotten, bankrupt capitalist system and going forward to the European socialist revolution.
There is only one way forward for the workers of Europe. This is to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to lead socialist revolutions to replace the bankrupt EU with the Socialist United States of Europe.
