24hr Strike in the public and private sector against the closure of the Public Television-ERT

PAME held a magnificent strike rally outside the headquarters of ERT in the framework of the 24hr general strike in the private and public sector, with the slogan “this command is the political line of the monopolies”.

The banner of PAME’s forces in the press and media was at the head of the demonstration “Break the bonds of subjugation, strengthen the front for the overthrow”.

A large delegation of the CC of the KKE was present at the demonstration headed by the General Secretary of the party, Dimitris Koutsoumpas.

Giorgos Milionis, representative of PAME’s forces in the press and media, made the central speech in the square of Agia Paraskevi. He demanded that the anti-people legislative act, which imposed the closure of ERT, be cancelled. He added that what is occurring in ERT is not an isolated phenomenon but is part of a general political direction which the country’s bourgeois class is mapping out in alliance with its partners, the EU, ECB and IMF. He underlined that their goal is the reduction of the price of labour power and the handing over of prime cuts of public property to the appetites of monopoly capital.

ERT journalists addressed a greeting on behalf of the workers of ERT, making particular reference to PAME, which has been at their side all these years and the radio-television station of the KKE, “902”, which is broadcasting the strike programme of ERT. Similar rallies were held in dozens of cities all over Greece.

It should be noted that at the order of the government, each time 902 TV broadcasts the strike programme of the ERT workers, the private company provider of digital frequencies immediately cuts off 902’s programme, muzzling and censoring the TV station of the KKE. This is a provocative authoritarianism which accompanies the anti-worker offensive of the three-party government. The stance of PASOK and the Democratic Left, the two parties which participate together with ND in the three-party government, is hypocritical. Because despite the fact that they have agreed to 15,000 dismissals from the public sector, they hypocritically state that they are against the decision to close ERT.

The developments in ERT and the plans for a new radio-television enterprise with less staff and flexible labour relations highlight that the state enterprises also in the conditions of capitalism and the dominance of the monopolies, will operate according to criteria of the privately owned economy, based on profits. The opposition of the KKE and the class-oriented labour movement to the privatizations does not mean that they exonerate the role of the state enterprises and services today. Besides these are also a creation of the bourgeois classes and their governments. We are not struggling against the privatizations with the slogan that there can be a pro-people state of the dictatorship of the monopolies. We do not fall into the trap of the “market of hope” regarding the alternation of governments inside the capitalist development path. For the struggles against the privatizations to have continuity, duration and prospects, it must advance along the only path which contains hope – the socialization of the monopolies, the overthrow of their power, the disengagement from the EU and NATO.