The working class has a common struggle against governments’ anti-worker attacks and capitalist exploitation

On 12 February, India’s trade unions are going on a general strike against the new anti-worker legislation being prepared by the Modi government. Farmers’ associations are also participating in the strike.
The new “Labour Code,” under the pretext of simplifying labour legislation, delivers a blow to Collective Bargaining Agreements, the right to union organisation, and the right to strike, while intensifying insecurity and exploitation.

At the same time, the Indian government is promoting privatisations and the commodification of Health and Education, as well as of strategic sectors of the economy such as Energy, Railways, and Telecommunications, with the sole criterion being the profitability and competitiveness of business groups. The living standards of workers, already hit by rising prices and low wages, are expected to deteriorate even further as a result of this policy.

Workers in Greece know this policy very well, as it has been implemented by governments of all shades, social-democratic and liberal alike. In October, thousands of workers went on strike against the 13-hour workday, against the dismantling of a stable daily working time and the turning of our lives into a rubber band stretched for capital’s profits. We demanded a 7-hour day – 5-day week – 35-hour week, collective agreements, and wage increases.

Against the war economy, against the transformation of ports and infrastructure into links in the imperialist wars of the EU, the USA and NATO, dockworkers from six countries and twenty Mediterranean ports delivered a powerful strike response on 6 February, under the slogan: “Dockworkers do not work for war.”

In Greece, on 13 February, we continue our mobilisations against the new disgraceful agreement of the compromised leadership of the GSEE with the government and the industrialists, which is being brought to Parliament for a vote and places new obstacles to collective agreements while further crushing already low wages. We welcome the farmers who are coming to Athens with their tractors for a large nationwide rally, demanding the self-evident: to be able to cultivate, to remain in production, and to have a dignified income. We escalate with a strike on 28 February, three years after the crime of the train collision in Tempi, under the slogan “Their profits or our lives.”

From India to Greece, the answer lies in mass organisation in the trade unions, in strengthening the struggles of demands against monopolies, governments and imperialist organisations, and in confronting the line of compromise and submission which, at the international level, is expressed by the ITUC.

PAME expresses its solidarity with the trade unions and workers of India and wishes you every success in your strike. We strengthen the common struggle of workers, farmers and all the people against the policy of profit that sacrifices our needs and our lives. With a class orientation, with internationalist solidarity, with the unity of the working class in every country and internationally, we intensify the struggle for work with rights, for Collective Agreements, for Health and Education, against imperialist wars and the system of exploitation.

Solidarity is the weapon of the workers!