Our answer to the barbarity of the policy of war and exploitation is a strong, organised movement of workers and the people!
Thessaloniki was flooded with thousands upon thousands of demonstrators on Saturday 5 September. Workers, small farmers struggling to make a living, the self-employed, pensioners and young people arrived from across the country and sent a resounding message: We refuse to sacrifice our needs and our lives for the profits of business groups and the wars of the US, NATO and the EU.
The sight of those tens of thousands of demonstrators was buried; it found no place in the “objective” media. YMCA Square, the unions’ banners, the march that filled Tsimiski Street from YMCA Square to the port, the voices of thousands of people demanding a life with rights – all were treated as though they had never existed. At the same time, the government’s announcements at the Thessaloniki International Fair were given endless hours of television airtime and pages of coverage.
This selective silence is a deliberate choice. The media owned by shipowners and industrialists have every reason to put a favourable gloss on a policy that serves their owners’ interests. They have every reason to play down collective struggle, especially when thousands of people take to the streets with their unions and demonstrate the strength of organised class struggle.
Their war and their profits are present in our lives every day.
They are there in wages that run out before the end of the month. In pensions that cannot cover food, bills and medicines. In rents that swallow up incomes, in understaffed schools, in hospitals facing shortages, in workplaces where the intensification of work and the absence of protective measures threaten workers’ health and lives.
The Prime Minister’s announcements at the Thessaloniki International Fair confirmed the government’s priorities, which the other parties of capital also share. Billions are made available for business groups, armaments and deeper involvement in war plans. When it comes to the needs of workers and the people, they invoke “fiscal limits”, what the economy can afford, and the promise that growth will eventually reach everyone.
Workers, however, have experience. Growth measured in business groups’ profits does not translate into better wages, shorter working hours, decent housing and public services. For the people to win, they must confront the policy of profit that treats their needs as a cost.
Allowances are no substitute for the 13th and 14th salary payments or the 13th and 14th pension payments. The high cost of living calls for substantial increases in wages and pensions, the abolition of unfair indirect taxes on basic necessities, food, energy and fuel, and a decisive increase in the tax-free income allowance for working-class and other ordinary households.
Housing cannot be a source of profit for banks, investment funds and large construction groups while workers and young couples cannot secure a home. Health and education need funding, staff and infrastructure that meet real needs. These are rights we have paid for through our work and our taxes.
The great rally in Thessaloniki shows the way. What is needed now is continuity, organisation and an escalation of struggle and strike action.
The anger building up in every working-class and ordinary household can become a force for organisation, demands and struggle. Through participation in trade unions, general assemblies and struggle committees, and through daily conversations with colleagues. Through active unions that organise the fight in every workplace and are already preparing the next steps in struggle and strike action.
30 October will be an important milestone in struggle and strike action, with the International Day of Action by dockworkers’ unions from seven countries and 40 ports. This struggle unites workers across borders and sends a message of internationalist and class solidarity against war and exploitation. Every union must take responsibility for preparing it, through workplace information campaigns and solidarity initiatives. Everywhere, we must strengthen the demand for higher wages and pensions. For collective bargaining agreements and a seven-hour day, a five-day week and a 35-hour working week. For public, free health and education. For effective protective measures in the workplace. For no participation in imperialist wars.
Joint action by workers, small farmers, the self-employed, pensioners and young people can strengthen the struggle against the policies of capital, the government, the EU and NATO. It can give direction to everyday struggles and confidence to those who are struggling, angry and looking for a way forward.
This is the strength they fear. And this is the strength we are called upon to build. Let the Thessaloniki rally become the starting point for new, larger and more determined struggles. Let our answer be heard in every workplace, every sector and every neighbourhood:
Money for wages, health and education!
No sacrifice for their wars and profits!
