LAST Wednesday’s 24-hour general strike in Greece saw tens of thousands of workers, students and young people, many waving Palestinian flags, taking part in rallies and marches in all main cities.
The strike was called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) and by the ADEDY (public sector trade unions federation) with the main demands being large pay rises, collective labour agreements, adequate funding for state hospitals and for free state education.
In the capital Athens, over 20,000 workers and youth staged three separate marches, one by the GSEE-ADEDY, a second by the PAME (the Greek Communist Party’s trade union sector), and a third by the left Coalition of Trade Unions. The PAME march was by far the largest.
Mass and militant marches took place in the port city of Piraeus with large contingents by dockers and metal workers calling for wage increases, collective agreements and safety measures at work.
There were two marches in Thessaloniki, the industrial centre and second largest Greek city.
The Trades Council’s march attracted large number of bus drivers, with workers and students shouting such slogans as, ‘Law is the right of the worker, the striker, the unemployed and the immigrant’, ‘They are tearing down the conquests of an entire century – Everyone in the street, everyone in the struggle’, ‘The youth do not bow their heads – Together people, resistance and struggle’, and ‘Students, workers – One voice and one fist’.
The other Thessaloniki march was organised by PAME and headed to the USA consulate in the city. Marchers demanded collective Agreements with wage increases, hygiene and safety measures in the workplaces, funds for state and free for all health and education.
In all strike marches there were continuous chants for solidarity and freedom to Palestine.
The 24-hour general strike and the mass marches follow on, and are a consequence of, the widespread strike wave of the last two months, with intense national strikes by hospital workers and doctors, teachers, metal workers, dockers, seafarers, construction workers, delivery and tourist industries workers and last Sunday’s massive students’ demonstration in commemoration of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising of 1973.
What was immediately apparent in all the strike marches in Athens was the very high participation of workers in their 20s and 30s, and the slogans for solidarity and victory of Palestine, for an end to the genocide, shouted throughout the marches to the Vouli (Greek parliament).
contingents of young workers – in education, research, offices, shops, service industries – and very large students’ contingents on the marches, declared with their banners and slogans that they are ready and determined to fight head on against the parliamentary junta of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
A few contingents demanded the escalation of the struggles with an indefinite strike and shouted: ‘Down with the murderous New Democracy government.’
The call for a national workers’ and youth’s assembly to organise an indefinite political general strike for the overthrow of the Mitsotakis regime is being discussed in some trade unions branches, but is blocked by the PAME and the left trade unions leaders who consider that the working class is not strong enough for such a fight.
These leaders are of the opinion that capitalism has overcome the world wide economic crisis and is still strong enough.
In contrast to the enthusiasm of young workers and students, the leaders of the GSEE and ADEDY organised a protest stroll in the Athens city centre, ‘a blank shot to the skies’ as workers put it.
Likewise, the leaders of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and of PAME were content with a one-day strike parade. Both the trade union bureaucracy of the GSEE-ADEDY and the KKE-PAME leaders have accepted privatisations.
What has to be understood is that the GSEE-ADEDY and the KKE-PAME leaders designed the 24-hour general strike not as a united working class force against the Mitsotakis’ government, but in order to terminate the wave of last months’ strikes which were becoming insurgent and out of the bureaucracy’s and KKE’s control.
Thus it is clear that the militancy of the young workers and students in Greece must break free with the establishment of a revolutionary leadership in trade unions and the formation of a revolutionary party to lead the working class to power.
According to trade unionists on the marches, there was 100% participation in the general strike by the seafarers – not a single ferry or ship sailed from any Greek port – by dock workers of Piraeus, by construction workers and by the metal workers in the Piraeus’ ship repairs yard. In the Athens-Pireaus public transport – Metro, buses, trams – there was also 100% participation to the morning and evening strike stoppages.
As the GSEE-ADEDY leaderships carried out minimum work for the 24-hour general strike, the participation of workers in large factories, industries, business enterprises, public service and local government was quite limited.
At the GSEE-ADEDY joint rally, the GSEE General Secretary called for an end to the genocide in Gaza and for a Palestinian State. But the GSEE have refused to organise even a single march or strike in support of the Palestinian people and against the Mitsotakis’ government support to Netanyahu and the Zionist state.
Yet what shone through the one-day general strike marches were the determination and the most apparent class hatred of young workers’ and students’ against the Mitsotakis’ government of barbarous austerity, as dictated by the EU-IMF Accords, against the Zionist genocide, and against the imperialists’ war in the Ukraine.