PAME that represents the class unions of Greece, expresses its solidarity with the workers and trade unions of Finland against the authoritarian law of the Marin government against the right to strike.

On Monday, 19 September the Finnish parliament passed a law that effectively bans the right to strike for health workers under the false title “Patient Safety Act”.

The supposedly ‘progressive’ government of the Social Democrats, who have formed a coalition with the Left Alliance, the Swedish People’s Party, the Green League and the Centre Party, due to chronic underfunding and understaffing of the health services, have led to a huge deterioration in the health services provided. With this law they seek on the one hand to transfer the consequences of their policies to health workers, and on the other hand they seek to legally impose forced labour and turn workers into slaves of the 21st century, without the right to organise, to unionise and to demand.

Employers, governments and the European Union are running to catch up with the explosion of peoples’ anger and indignation. And because the illusions of the “welfare state”, “sustainable development”, “competitiveness and prosperity” are being shattered by the onslaught of price rises and the bloody profits of big business, they are resorting to the whip, intimidations and fear.

In the face of authoritarianism and repression, workers have the weapons of organisation, solidarity, collective and unyielding struggle.

PAME stands with the workers and trade unions of Finland for the abolition of the reactionary, anti-workers’ law of the Marin government