A LEAKED email sent to the Greek Ministries of Finance and Labour from the Troika mafia in Brussels says Greek private sector workers must be made to work six days a week and work 13-hour days.
The letter, which was published on August 31, shows that the Troika has ordered the Greek Labour Ministry to implement a further programme of slashing and vicious cuts designed to turn the Greek workers and youth into slaves of the European bankers.
They include cutting the notice needed to be given before workers can be fired, and cutting redundancy packages by 50% after a firing.
Overtime pay is to be abolished while the Labour Inspectorate which is the public service responsible for implementing labour law is to be wound up, making for a fully operating law of the capitalist jungle for Greek workers and youth – but not only for them.
The email was sent ahead of meetings between Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his coalition partners, the PASOK Socialists of Evangelos Venizelos and the Democratic Left of Fotis Kouvelis.
With the Labour law totally abolished, Greece is to be the deregulated paradise that the bourgeoisie dreams about introducing all over the world, as the only way to resolve the current crisis of capitalism, for a period at least.
A six-day working week is now in the sights of the Greek employers with just 11 hours to be allowed between shifts.
The relationship between Greece and the Troika – which includes the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank, has been tense for months, after the Troika repeatedly accused Athens of failing to keep to its deficit-reduction plan.
An arrogant Troika official said yesterday that nothing had been done in Greece for the past three or four months and that now Greece had to make up for lost time or else face an exit from the EU.
The Greek government agreed to new cuts for 2013-2014, but has already warned that it will be unable to push through new cuts because the fuse of the masses is reaching explosion point.
‘This is the last such package of spending cuts,’ Samaras told a meeting of his conservative party’s officials on Thursday.
The government is currently drawing up plans on how to come up with 11bn euros worth of savings to satisfy the Troika.
Yesterday, Greece’s Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said that ‘There is political agreement on the 11bn euros package. It will be sealed next week and presented to the Troika, and then go forward to the Greek parliament for rubber-stamping.’
However the bourgeoisie now knows that the Greek workers are getting very angry and that many, many workers and youth are deciding that the only solution to the crisis is a socialist revolution that smashes Greek capitalism and the European bosses and bankers.
When the Greek parliament rubber stamps the brutal 11bn euro of cuts after the leak of the memo, the only response will be an indefinite general strike.
The Troika is due to return to Athens on Wednesday to deliver a report on the country’s progress in terms of meeting its bail-out obligations. The results will determine whether EU leaders decide to continue funding Greece, or eject it from the eurozone.
Greece is in the midst of a massive slump, with nearly two million people currently unemployed. The economy has shrunk seven per cent, and 68,000 businesses have been closed.
It is not the working class that has caused this crisis. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures show the average Greek employee works 2,017 hours per year – more than in any other European country.
The Greek workers and youth are increasingly being left with only one road to take, the road of the socialist revolution to overthrow the bankrupt Greek capitalists and begin the socialist revolution throughout Europe.
Spain, Portugal, France, and the UK are not too far behind Greece. The bosses of the EU are planning Greek medicine for the working class and youth of all Europe.
There can be only one reply. The workers of the EU must build sections of the Fourth International all over the EU to lead the developing European socialist revolution to its victory and replace bankrupt EU capitalism with socialism.
This is the only alternative to Greek medicine all round.