A torrent of people’s solidarity

Yesterday the avenue in front of the headquarters of ERT was once again flooded by a big people’s torrent (which occupied all traffic lanes with its massed ranks) expressing the solidarity of the working people with the struggle of the state radio and television workers.

The demonstration was once again organized by PAME. The unions which are rallied in the Front have been at the frontline of the struggle and solidarity. Thousands of working people demanded the abolition of the legislative act and the immediate opening of ERT.

A delegation of the CC of the KKE, headed by its General Secretary, comrade Dimitris Koutsoumpas, participated in the demonstration. In his statement Dimitris Koutsoumpas stressed: “the solution does not lie in the formulas proposed by the new two-pole system either with ND or SYRIZA at its core. The way-out lies in the regroupment of the labour movement, in the people’s alliance, in the joint struggle with the KKE. The people, the workers must turn their back on the tricks, on the objectives of the parties of the coalition government ,of the other opposition parties, such as SYRIZA, which aim merely at subjugating the people in order to satisfy the objectives of the monopolies and the EU. The legislative act must be immediately cancelled, the state radio and television must open immediately and no employee should be dismissed from the public organizations and the public sector in general. For this reason the common struggle of all the working people must intensify in the next period both in private and public sector. There should not be any complacency, the people must not be disoriented and must not pay attention to the propaganda which is promoted these days with the various scenarios about the developments”.

Christos Katsotis delivered the speech at the rally on behalf of the Executive Secretariat of PAME. He mentioned: “we do not struggle to bring another caliph in the place of the caliph but for another political line, another organization of the economy and society, so that the wealth can belong to those who created it. (…) We do not struggle for the reactionary staff that supports this mechanism of the barbaric system. We struggle for the majority of the employees who are being dismissed now and for those who will be employed by the new ERT with despicable labour relations, and starvation wages”. The shrinkage of ERT does not take place for cost saving but in order to provide space for the development of the activity of the big private channels and radio stations.”

He also added that: “The mass media must be concentrated even more rapidly into fewer monopoly groups. Therefore, the developments in the economy, the needs of the economy of capital are those that are imposing these policies. SYRIZA is promoting the issue of democracy because it wants to conceal the economic policy that it will implement as a government. What is SYRIZA saying to us? That there can exist a democracy with the monopolies undisturbed and the people on the margins? Can there be democracy with the monopolies in charge, adapted to the decisions of the EU and the people unemployed, hungry, and intensely exploited? All these things constitute the dictatorship of the monopolies. (…) The class-oriented movement is struggling on a daily basis for the real freedoms of the working class and our people and practically deal with whatever restrictions through the intransigent struggle which its is waging for the final liberation of the working class.”

A “second demonstration” was held at the headquarters of ERT after the march until late in the evening, with trade unionists speaking through the microphones that had been set up there, in order to express their solidarity with the workers of ERT.

Late Monday evening an initial agreement of the partners of the three-party government was arrived at with the decision of the Council of State, so that the pre-agreed mass dismissals of the ERT workers can proceed and so that the offensive against the people as a whole can escalate.

In other words, the decision of the court orders the reopening of the signal and transmissions, until a new organization is created. I.e, the more than 2,500 workers of ERT remain dismissed, its dissolution is scheduled and the only obligation of the government is to hoist up the signal again, until the new organization is created.

The decision of the bourgeois judiciary (the Council of State), which was issued this week and which on the one hand demands that the government open the public radio and television, but on the other approves the dissolution of the company , the dismissal of thousands of workers, demonstrates that the real framework of this “democracy”, where the political personnel of the bourgeois handle their interests, sometimes with legislative acts- dozens in the last 4 years alone- other times with the mantle of the parliamentary correlation of forces, or with judicial decisions or intimidation and violent repression. The issue is not “democracy” in general, but which class’s interests are served and in the end which class is in power. The discussion that must begin today widely amongst the people, is what struggle responds to their interests, against whom and with what perspective. As regards the KKE, the answer is crystal clear and it poses it the people every day with its activity: It needs a people’s alliance, a class struggle, with an orientation of coming into conflict with the bourgeois power and its state, in order to impede the anti-people management and to pave the way for pro-people changes at the level of the economy and power.