Working men and women, young men and women, unemployed people, pensioners, economic migrants.
The gravity of the strike on May 11 is very high. It is not just another strike. We must make this strike the beginning of new struggles to overthrow the antipopular policy. The streets must now be flooded with people of labor, the working places must be empty, and the neighbourhoods must outcry. The troika and the government must not invoke workers’ consent.
With the flags of PAME, strengthening the organization and in alliance with the self-employed and poor farmers, we can reverse the situation. Altogether with the slogan:
We refuse to make further sacrifices for the plutocracy.
We demand protective measures for the unemployed, the workers and their families now.
Altogether in the strike with PAME.
Altogether at Omonia on May 11, at 10a.m.
PAME calls you to make the success of the general strike your own case. It is not easy. You have against you the employers’ terrorism, the front of employers, government, N.D. (opposition party – conservatives), and their forces in the trade union movement, the deceit and misinformation.
Stagnation and every step behind the line of class confrontation, gives the government and plutocracy the chance to present them like an agreement and acceptance of the antipopular attack. If the response of the working class is not massive and dynamic now, the future struggles we will give, will be even more difficult.
We can confront them through better organization and with the decision to pull our own way.
They do not change. We must change our position and attitude in the movement. Above all we must place our needs and our families’ needs and not the interests and profits of plutocracy.
The government escalates the war against the people’s achievements through a new wave of antipopular measures: reduction of wages and pensions, cuts in benefits, abolition of working-time and of Collective Agreements, new tax burdens, privatizations, sell-out the public property. A new attack against the Social Security is being prepared by the abolition of the Heavy and Unwholesome Jobs, the exemption of employers from social security contributions, the cuts of supplementary pensions. All these are measures that strengthen capital and its profitability.
Working men and women,
Our organization, struggle and class consciousness is far below the requirements of today, less than the attack we face.
That is why it is necessary to strengthen the class unity and alliance. Only through this way we can become strong and counterattack. We are weak if everybody is alone.
No confidence in GSEE and ADEDY (the subjugated and employers’ trade unions in private and public sector)!
Their positions and the action platform that they propose are blank fire. They are aligned with the main political line of capital and government, since they project as a way out the strengthening of the competitiveness of the economy, namely the profitability of the capital, which is the underlying reason of the economic crisis.
They try to disarm the indignation of people, since they present the deficits, the Memorandum and the troika as the responsible for the sufferings that the workers face, acquitting by this way the government which is supposedly forced to take hard measures.
They hide the truth that all the measures taken were in the Programme of PASOK (socialdemocrats) and N.D. (conservatives), because it was required for the interests of monopolies.
Working men and women,
There is rich experience. The working class and the other popular strata have paid a heavy price for the plutocracy. Things would have been much worse if these struggles hadn’t taken place. But if the resistance of the working class and the people as a whole was stronger, more powerful, we would save more achievements today.
We have the opportunity to reverse the situation, facing the worse things that are to come. We do not have another choice. The government wants to gather for the program of fiscal reform 75 billion euros; it will try once again to draw them out of the labor – popular income in favour of the big businesses. All the other stuff allegedly for the protection of the weak, the eradication of tax evasion etc. is completely deceitful and false.
That is why it is imperative to strengthen PAME everywhere. The organised struggle within every working place and the universal participation in the strike are imposed. The wages of hundreds of thousands of workers have already being reduced, the collective agreements are abolished and individual agreements are promoted today, so the need for the organization of struggle in the working places is becoming obvious in the most categorical way. There is a need of such an organization that will block the wage reductions, will brake the flexible forms of employment, will achieve satisfactory increases in wages, will demand humane working conditions etc.
Every sector separately, but in coordination with others as well, must now turn the gear that will give push to the struggle we give, so that we will repulse the abolition of collective agreements and will achieve satisfactory increases in salaries, day-wages, we will prevent the changes of working relations and the mass dismissals. This struggle must be expressed through militant participation in the strike demonstrations of PAME on May 11.
In the framework of the coordination of action, there is an urgent need to project and demand the protection of the unemployed people. No job is guaranteed. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed people live in desperate circumstances. The protection of their families, who also suffer, is required. No victim of unemployment should be deprived the fulfillment of at least his/her basic needs.
Dear colleagues,
We must not allow further privatizations in strategic sectors of the economy. The government through the long-time slander of the public sector employees, with the support of the trade union majorities, paves the way to deliver everything to the capital. If these projects proceed, the cost for the people will be dramatic. The already burdened tariffs will become even more expensive. Electricity, water, services are very expensive.
They must find us radically opposed to the new measures on health. The promotion of commercialization, mergers, the shut down of hospitals and units of public health, the abolition of health tests and drugs will force us to pay even more expensive health services or we will not be able to protect our health.
There is not exit from the crisis for the people, if the plutocracy does not pay. We are the only ones who can impose it. We have only one way: the way of conflict and rupture with the monopolies, the E.U. and their political servants. We have the power, only if we are organized and take decisions.
Militant, thunderous participation in the strike on May 11
We reject and condemn the new measures.
Hands off our families lives.
We will escalate the struggle. We will continue until the end of the struggle, so that we will overthrow the antipopular policy and their power.
We demand and assert:
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Work for all, permanent and stable.
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Hands off the Labor Collective Agreements. Increases in wages and pensions now.
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1,120€ unemployment benefit for the whole duration of unemployment.
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Health-care benefits for all, without terms and conditions
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Hands off the Heavy and Unwholesome Jobs, and extension with the inclusion of new professions
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Pension at 60 years of age for men and 55 for women.
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Reinstatement of the 13th and 14th pension and the 13th and 14th wage (Christmas and Easter bonus).
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Abolition of all the antilabor laws which attack social security rights of the governments of PASOK (socialdemocrats) and N.D.(conservatives).
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No reduction in supplementary pensions. 1,120€ lowest pension.
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Abolition of the VAT (value added tax) in all types of products which have broad popular consumption.
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30% reduction in tariffs of the former public utilities firms.
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45% factor for the taxation of the capital profits.
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Drastic reduction of the tickets’ prices in the Mass Transportation Means for workers and pensioners. Free transportation for unemployed people, pupils and students.
Altogether in the strike on May 11 and
the demonstration at Omonoia, 10a.m.