OVER 2,000 Greek public sector workers on short-contracts staged a militant demonstration through Athens city centre on Wednesday, calling on the social-democratic government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou to fulfil his pre-election promise to employ them on a permanent basis.
The mobilisation was part of a 24-hour strike of all short-contract workers in Greece. Demonstrations took place in other Greek cities as well.
The march was made up of numerous delegations of short-contract workers from ministries, local government and state organisations as well as from the privatised Olympic Airways.
These workers, the vast majority of them in their 20s and early 30s, have been working for years on short-contracts, which are periodically renewed; in this way the government is not obliged to pay them the current normal wage, also they do not have the same labour rights that permanent workers have.
But as they shouted ‘We want jobs – not sackings’ through the main Athens avenues, the Greek social-democratic government decided to sack all of them immediately.
It is estimated that more than 15,000 workers on short-contracts are employed in the public sector alone.
It is a most barbaric jobs massacre. Over 50,000 young workers are to get the sack, including the 30-40 thousands on the so-called ‘stage’ public sector cheap labour schemes – which the government intends to get rid of.
Under glorious sunshine short-contract workers gathered outside the HQ of the GSEE (Greek TUC) where a delegation held a meeting with top trade union bureaucrats – who have already accepted the government’s decision to sack all ‘stage’ workers.
After the meeting Lena Panou, an executive member of the Minister for Culture’s short-contract workers trade union, spoke to the News Line and said ‘We told them that we want the GSEE to call strikes and mobilisations in support of “stage” and short-contract workers; they coldly replied that they will put our demand to the next GSEE executive meeting next week.’
Short-contract workers are extremely angry about the GSEE’s and ADEDY’s (federation of public sector trade unions) stand, and they kept on shouting ‘GSEE and ADEDY end the compromises!’ outside the building.
The demonstrators also shouted witty and ironical slogans and verses against the government and Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou, such as ‘Yiorghos remember your contract will be terminated!’ and ‘Yiorghos you will end up like the previous government’s ministers!’ – a reminder and a warning since most of the top ministers of the previous Greek right-wing government failed to get elected in the October 4th general election.
Other popular slogans on the march expressing the sheer determination of workers, were ‘We want jobs not sackings’; ‘Permanent jobs – not unemployment’; ‘Sackings will remain on paper’; ‘This strike is making history – we will get back to work victorious!’
During the march Yiannis Triantafyllidis, a sacked Ministry for Culture underwater archeologist, and Antonis Pitsoulis, a member of the executive of the short-contract archeologists’ trade union, spoke to the News Line about their struggle.
‘Unfortunately, GSEE are just looking after themselves; they agree with the government’s policy of sacking all short-contract and “stage” workers,’ Yiannis said.
‘They do not support us, they are against us.’
He spoke about how the Greek Ministry for Culture employs few archaeologists although there are so many ancient sites and over 1,000 ancient shipwrecks to be investigated, which is his specialty.
‘It was a social-democratic government which in 1992 instigated the employment of short-contract staff instead of permanent jobs; I worked for two years and then they gave me the sack,’ Yiannis stated.
He was very critical of the current leaders in the trade union movement as well as of the KKE (Greek Communist Party) leadership. ‘I was about to join them but all they want to do is hold their own separate marches from the rest of the working class. I do not have any hope in these leaderships.’
Antonis is also very critical of the trade union leaders in the GSEE-ADEDY and in the Ministry for Culture.
‘We want all workers to join in the struggle against sackings and unemployment, for proper permanent jobs. But when we carried out a symbolic occupation of the Ministry for Culture building, these trade union bureaucrats refused to support us saying that we do not have specific demands’ he exclaimed.
Antonis and his militant colleagues in the trade union have formed a platform to fight for a new leadership in the union.
On the day of the short-contract workers’ successful strike and marches, the European Union’s Finance Commissioner, Joachim Almunia, said that the Greek economy is in the worst position of all in the Euro group, and demanded an immediate ‘very ambitious fiscal consolidation strategy and institutional reforms,’ meaning an all-out attack on workers’ wages and pensions through reactionary reforms such as ‘flexible’ working conditions and mass sackings.
Almunia said that the situation in Greece was very bad and spelled out the EU’s fears of the effect of the Greek economy’s bankruptcy on the euro.
But even before Almunia had publicly laid down the EU law to Greece, the Greek Prime Minister had called an emergency Cabinet meeting late on Tuesday evening to adopt the EU’s diktats in the next year’s Budget.
These are: the sacking of all short-term and ‘stage’ workers, colossal public cuts, more taxes on everyday family goods, raising the pension age for women, extension of ‘flexible’ working conditions, all for a 20 pence a day pay rise. These policies are bound to fuel the revolutionary resistance of the Greek working class and youth.