TENS of thousands of Greek workers, youth and unemployed took part in a general strike rally yesterday in front of the occupied ERT (Greek state TV and Radio network) building in Athens.
The one-day general strike was called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) and ADEDY (public sector workers’ unions federation) in support of the 2,800 ERT workers sacked last Tuesday by a dictatorial edict of the Greek parliamentary junta of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
The Greek Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Marxist League (RML) have called for the ERT building to remain a ‘centre of resistance’ but that a march should be carried out from ERT to the Vouli (parliament) in the centre of Athens demanding the overthrow of the hated troika-imposed Samaras regime and the kicking out of the treacherous trade union bureaucrats from the GSEE (Greek TUC) building.
The RML have called for workers to turn this one-day general strike into an indefinite political general strike for the overthrow of the Samaras parliamentary junta to go forward to a workers and small farmers’ revolutionary socialist government.
The press unions called a national strike throughout the media on Tuesday. Only one radio station broke the strike. Workers decided that newspapers were not to be printed for yesterday.
More than 15,000 workers and students congregated outside the occupied ERT building on Wednesday all day and night despite continuous rain. Top Greek singers and the ERT Symphony Orchestra and Choir gave a concert. Workers and the ERT employees are on the watch against an attack on the ERT building by the armed riot police squads.
ERT employees are broadcasting a strike programme through the internet since armed riot police have occupied ERT’s transmitters.
The discussion amongst workers and youth on Wednesday in the ERT grounds, centred on the dictatorial measures of the Samaras government, the reactionary nature of the trade union bureaucracy who called just a one-day strike which workers condemn as ‘a blank shot’, and on the Turkish workers’ and youths’ uprising.
But neither the Coalition of the Radical Left party (SYRIZA), nor the Greek Communist Party (KKE) nor the centrist ANTARSYA ‘anti-capitalist’ formation have demanded an indefinite strike.
They are fearful of the revolutionary rage of the Greek working class who have spontaneously rushed to the ERT building to wage a fight against the tripartite government, the organ of the EC-IMF-ECB troika.
SYRIZA have called for a general election while they, as well as the KKE, have tabled motions against the government in the Vouli (Greek parliament).
The ERT occupation and workers’ action have created a huge political crisis for the Samaras parliamentary junta that rules Greece through dictatorial edicts, completely bypassing and ignoring the Vouli (Greek parliament).
Samaras’ dictatorial action has ignited the revolutionary action of Greek workers and youth who have been betrayed in the last few months by the SYRIZA and the KKE.
The international economic crisis and collapse of Greek capitalism is forcing Samaras on the road to dictatorship so as to impose the barbaric austerity measures Accords dictated by the troika creditors of the EC-IMF-ECB.
Likewise, Greek workers and youth have been forced on the revolutionary road to overthrow this government and capitalism. It is this road that SYRIZA and KKE are trying to block through parliamentary manoeuvres and with a call to a general election.
