The new measures taken by the Troika – the government, the plutocracy and the EU – have squeezed salaries at all levels. They have put further pressure on working people of all categories: skilled and unskilled workers, the old and the young, workers in the public sector and in the private sector, the unemployed, and pensioners.

It is a big lie that cutting the lowest salaries by 20%-22% affects only the lowest paid workers and those who will be entering the work market. It affects all and everything.

a) Unmarried persons without work experience will receive €430 after the cuts, while they receive €633 after tax at present. The minimum salary for young people up to the age of 25 will become €430 after tax, and for young people working as trainees it will be even lower – €345.

b) All branch collective agreements are being led to destruction. The aim is for salaries to start at €494. Branch collective agreements that are expiring will be knocked down to this humiliating amount. The likelihood is that this amount will not be raised above €600.

c) The cuts in the lowest salaries will drag down the basic pensions, which are always closely linked, either by law or without any law, with the level of the lowest salary. At present, the basic lowest IKA pension amounts to €486, which is 65% of the aggregate lowest salary. On the basis of the new scale for the lowest salaries, pensions will look more like an allowance for the poor rather than a pension.

d) The losses of the Insurance Funds will amount at least EUR 2.5 billion per year as a result of lowering the lowest salaries. This will start a new anti-insurance disaster for all present and future pensions and allowances.

e) Unemployment benefits will be put under the guillotine, as they will be based on 55% of the daily wage of an unskilled worker. Taking these new factors into consideration, unemployment benefits will be reduced from €462 to €369. All other benefits of OAED and the insurance funds, such as maternity benefits, child benefits and others, will either be modified on the basis of starvation wages, or they will be squeezed down in the name of rationalizing all expenditure.

Further cuts to the lowest salaries constitute just one of the stings of the new onslaught on the masses, as it is accompanied by:

• A freeze on salary increases (about 5% every three years on salaries before tax), which will reduce real incomes and worsen the terms for calculating pension scales,

• Drastic cuts to all benefits for hazardous, unhealthy jobs, etc., when the collective bargaining agreements expire. Everything will be renegotiated on the basis of the scale limits of the lowest salaries of €500. The way is being paved for most benefits to be abolished.

• Cuts of at least 2% in employers’ insurance contributions in the first phase, as a result of which the insurance funds will sink to the bottom, opening the way to even more reduced basic and supplementary pensions. These cuts will also help plans to further shrink allowances for medication, health check-ups, etc.,

• A guillotine on all pensions, lowering them by 15% to 40%. All the parties of the plutocracy have agreed to this, one way or another,

• Abolition of the workers’ right to appeal on their own behalf at the OMED. This essentially means abolishing the right to appeal to arbitration as the last resort against capitalist intransigence,

• The dismissal of 150 000 public workers will not only greatly increase the already huge number of unemployed; it will also shrink and paralyse the work of kindergartens, schools, hospitals, insurance funds, etc.

• Abolition of permanent employment at semi-state companies and banks. This will open the way for an overall reversal of labour relations, and it will intensify the terrorization of workers by their employers.

• Abolition of the Workers’ Housing Corporations and Workers’ Home Corporations. This will drive to desperation thousands of households where the family budget depends on rent benefits, housing loans, etc. In addition, even the very few benefits in support of the workers’ basic needs for culture, entertainment, etc., are being abolished.

The Troika – the government, the EU, and big capital – together with the Eurocentric parties, have colluded in taking these measures. They represent the plutocracy, and all those who support it. The people are the losers with the implementation of these measures, while those who will gain from them are the industrialists, the bankers, the big hoteliers, the big businessmen and the monopolies. In just the last two years, according to official data based on lists of names of those whose salaries have been cut, about EUR 9.2 billion has been taken out of the workers’ pockets. This is money that has been channeled directly into enlarging the capital of the plutocracy. The workers will lose altogether 50% of their incomes.

There is no end to this inferno. We will be told again in a few months that the salvation of our country requires new measures, and that all the sacrifices made until now have not been sufficient. Using bankruptcy as a scarecrow, it will be no surprise if they ask for our flesh and blood tomorrow. They are resolutely determined, but we have to stop them because it is certain that they are not going to stop the massacre now.

This is the hour of great responsibility for all of us. If we do not stop the measures now, they will throw us into the deep end, into Kaiada. Don’t waste more blood for the profit of the monopolies.

We must not let them impose their laws on factories, companies and branches.

Pame invites you to organize ourselves and to fight in unison against the abolition of the Collective Agreements.

Kick out the lackeys of the employees, all those who try to sow defeatism, and those who compromise with the employers.

Choose your leaders and fighters.

Rely on PAME, contact PAME.