4th strike in a month: The streets flooded again with strikers of PAME

On Thursday March 11th the streets in 68 cities and towns were rivers swollen with anger as employees, youth, women and pensioners demonstrated with PAME.

It has been the 4th strike in a period of a month which has been marked for the people’s mass participation and its dynamics.

Tens of thousands of people protested the severe cuts and tax measures which were initiated by the big capital and voted by the social democrat government of PASOK along with the nationalist LAOS while they are also supported by the liberals of ND and the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises.

The class oriented forces fought one more hard battle against intimidation launched by the employers and their parties that enriched the militant experience of the working people. Many people managed to overcome their hesitations and went on strike for the first time.

Once again, the strike demonstration of PAME has been much bigger than that organised by the leaderships of yellow trade unions confederations of GSEE and ADEDY. Once again the strikers turned their back on the yellow trade unionists.

Both the preparation of the strike as well as the planning for the next period consolidated the need for the organisation of the working class. In addition, they made clear to broad segments of popular strata that the repulsion of the attack will not be accomplished through one demonstration or in one day. Besides, this is the fear of plutocracy: the fact that the thousands of employees, battle-hardened through the multiform mobilizations of PAME, constitute an important basis not only for the resistance of the working class but also for its counterattack. And the reason is that they join a struggle that does not turn against a government or a mere law but against the very capitalist development that serves the multinational companies namely against the heart of the problem and not merely against some aspects of the problem.

Once again, PAME fought for the picketing of the strike in big factories and plants that paralysed since from the dawn. In addition, ports, airports, and metro stations froze while in Athens the city railway operated for a few hours so as to facilitate the workers to take part in the demonstration.

Vasilis Petropoulos, member of the Executive Secretariat of PAME who was the main speaker of the strike rally, mentioned: “There is no national risk; no national duty calls the workers to sacrifice their rights; there is only the greed of the capitalists for profit”.

Aleka Papariga, General Secretary of the CC of KKE said in the mass media: “Do not trust the declarations of the government. Do not trust the employer-led forces. They lie; they intimidate workers, they expect them to stop struggling so as to promote worse measures. The worst is to come. Thus it is necessary to continue and escalate the struggle.” The demonstrations were very powerful. When the mass blocks passed in front of the offices of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises workers threw red paint which symbolised that their profits are dripping with workers’ blood. Earlier this week the chairman of the Federation had made provocative statements that in Greece “industrialists are the only ones who have made sacrifices”…

The mobilisation of striking workers met with the block of the redundant employees of the privatised airlines “Olympic Air” who haven’t received any compensation for their dismissal and have been blocking Panepistimiou Street, the most central road of Athens, for the last 8 days claiming their right to work.

PAME has been by their side supporting them since the very first moment. The government and the capital demanded them with threats and intimidation to end the sit in and even mobilised procurators. Alexis Tsipras, head of SYRIZA and president of SYN which is member of the European Left Party (ELP), stated that: “If 200 people block Panepistimiou Street, they themselves have to realise that this way will not make them to win the rights they assert”.

Full in line with his statement was also the MP of SYRIZA, Papadimoulis, who said: “I disagree with this form of struggle because it undermines their struggle”. Their statements whitewashed the intervention of prosecutors aiming to intimidate the redundant employees who imposed with the struggle that “law is what is just for the workers”, a slogan that the opportunists of SYN which represents European Left Party and the yellow trade unionist forces of GSEE and ADEDY as well as ITUC and ETUC not only do not understand but also oppose actively. The multiform mobilisations of workers will continue the next period highlighting that the workers will make no sacrifices for the profits of the plutocracy; the strike on March 11 sent a clear message.