In a world burning from imperialist wars and interventions, in a world
where human life is devalued and entire peoples are massacred, in a war
that takes on such global dimensions, for the first time in 81 years,
and in which the Greek government has involved our country, only the
organized people can provide a way out on the road to overthrowing this
barbarity.
We live in conditions that humanity has not experienced for entire
generations. The imperialist intervention in Iran and the escalation of
war in the Middle East by the terrorist states of the USA and Israel
have intensified all the contradictions of the system. These
contradictions are linked to the ruthless competition between the USA
and China for supremacy in the imperialist system. All the regional
conflicts in the Pacific, the war between the USA/NATO–EU and Russia
that has been raging for four years in Ukraine, the interventions in
countries such as Venezuela and the threats against others such as Cuba,
are episodes of this generalized war that is escalating as capitalist
plunderers fight for profits, energy resources and rare earths, and for
the routes of energy and commodity transport.
With the responsibility of the government, our country is involved in a
barbaric war spreading across the Middle East and the Mediterranean that
may escalate further. Greece has been turned into a war launching pad,
with bases everywhere, ports and airports placed at the disposal of
imperialist powers, while new troop deployments outside the country are
also considered. This policy turns our people into a target. Their war
is not our war.
The deployment of troops to Cyprus does not serve the security of our
people or of the Cypriot people but the protection of British bases and
American forces stationed there. This dirty war is not fought for the
peoples. It is fought for the profits of the imperialists.
*US–NATO bases must leave our country.*
*Greece must get out of this dirty war*
No trust in the government and in the parties that agree with the NATO
and EU butchers. Their tears are fake. All of them together, during the
period of imperialist “peace,” rob us for their profits—and during
imperialist war they will rob and kill us again for those same profits.
They sacrifice our rights for war preparation and the war economy.
Global military spending has reached the astronomical amount of 2.72
trillion dollars.
In the EU, the ReArm Europe program of 800 billion euros is already
underway.
In Greece, military spending will exceed 30 billion euros in the coming
years.
They cut from health care, welfare, education and social policy in order
to subsidize the profits of business groups and the war economy. The
shameful “Social Agreement” signed by big employers, the government and
the trade-union bureaucrats of the General Confederation of Workers of
Greece (GSEE) aims to freeze wages and halt the demands of trade unions.
Workers are told to “keep their heads down” and support the “national
goals” of capital and bourgeois governments. Employer and state
intimidation is intensifying, and new measures restricting trade-union
activity are being prepared. Labour rights are being dismantled, 12-hour
and 13-hour workdays are imposed, and workplaces have become modern
crematoriums, like the case of VIOLANTA biscuits factory. They want us
to get used to the idea that our people will return in coffins for their
wars and their profits.
*TRADE UNIONS OF WORKERS – NOT OF GOVERNMENTS AND EMPLOYERS*
In these conditions, the need has become even clearer to strengthen
workers’ organization in workplaces, to increase trade-union membership
and defeat employer-controlled and government-controlled unionism
everywhere. Without the decisive steps taken in recent years to change
the balance of forces in the trade-union movement, these struggles could
not have been organized. This is the great contribution of PAME.
These massive mobilizations faced all the governments and parties of
capital, employers’ associations and also the majorities in GSEE and
General Confederation of Public Sector Workers (ADEDY). Once again we
witnessed their treacherous role as they supported the government and
business groups with all their forces. The most striking example was the
shameful “Social Agreement” secretly signed by the GSEE leadership.
The corruption revealed through European programs and the machinery of
buying consciences set up by the government, employers and trade-union
bureaucrats confirms how these forces remain in their positions. PAME
has denounced this mechanism and the electoral frauds supporting it for
years.
*THE HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS STRUGGLES LIGHTS THE PATH FORWARD*
This year marks 140 years since the Chicago workers’ uprising for the
8-hour workday. Their struggle became a symbol of the invincible power
of the working class determined to move forward for social liberation.
We take up the torch of struggle from the heroic uprising of the workers
of Thessaloniki in May 1936 and from the 200 executed fighters of
Kaisariani on May Day 1944. Most of them were pioneering trade unionists
of the interwar period, persecuted and tortured because they refused to
submit to exploitation and to the barbarity of a state that sacrificed
workers’ rights to war preparation.
Their heroism inspires and educates us in militancy, dedication and
selflessness in the struggle to abolish the exploitation of man by man.
*WE CAN MAKE A BIG STEP FORWARD*
By building on our positive experience we can:
• Coordinate more forces in a broad nationwide front of struggle.
• Multiply the centers of struggle and resistance in every workplace,
sector and neighborhood.
• Strengthen trade unions and raise the level of workers’ organization.
• Change the balance of forces in unions, federations and labour centers
in favor of class-oriented forces.
• Strengthen joint action with farmers, students, the self-employed and
other popular forces.
We extend solidarity to the victims of imperialist war, migrants and
refugees. We strengthen internationalist solidarity with Cuba, Palestine
and all peoples struggling for peace and friendship.
*WE HAVE THE POWER TO SUCCEED*
The great strike of dockworkers in 20 Mediterranean ports on February 6
and the seafarers’ strike on March 5, declaring that “we do not work for
war,” show the path forward. They demonstrate the power of workers to win.
They show the road of overthrow, with Greece outside the EU and NATO and
the people masters in their own country.
We call on all trade-union that fought together in recent years to take
part in the discussion and coordination of the next steps of our struggle.
*WE STRENGTHEN THE STRUGGLE:*
• Greece out of the war! No participation in Euro-NATO imperialist
plans. Close all bases in our country. Recall the Greek Patriot battery
from Saudi Arabia and bring back all naval frigates and F-16s. No Greek
occupation troops in Palestine.
• Stand with the Palestinian people. Immediate recognition of the
Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
• No attack on labour and trade-union rights in the name of the war economy.
• 7-hour workday – 5-day week – 35 hours, secured through collective
agreements.
• Wage increases, pension increases and restoration of the 13th and 14th
salary and pensions.
• Restoration of workers’ gains such as seniority increments, favorable
collective agreements, Sunday rest and overtime pay.
• Health and safety measures in workplaces, our lives are not a cost.
• Funding for health and education, not for the slaughterhouses of war.
• Protection of working women and maternity rights. Universal
application of the 10% marriage allowance.
• Unemployment benefit for all unemployed at 80% of wages.
• Measures against inflation and for the protection of workers’ income:
tax-free threshold of €12,000 plus €3,000 per child, price caps on
energy and basic goods, abolition of VAT on essential goods, tax-free
diesel for farmers.
• Reestablishment of the Workers’ Housing Organization (OEK) for modern
and affordable housing.
• Protection of trade-union freedoms and resistance to anti-union
repression.
*WE BECOME THE PROTAGONISTS OF HISTORY*
*
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*OUR POWER IS ORGANIZATION*
*OUR WEAPON IS SOLIDARITY*
*OUR HOPE IS STRUGGLE*
—
PAME
