All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions (APFUTU) sends its full solidarity to the working class of Greece and comrades of PAME in Greece, facing the 24-hour general strike, called 20th November, for workers in the public and private sector.
The general strike arrives in a context of a brutal neo-liberal attack of the Greek government against the most elementary rights of the working class; with reforms that make the working and living conditions of the working class and the popular classes of the country even more precarious.
The Ministry of Labour’s draft law on the minimum wage and collective bargaining agreements aims not only to abolish the role of trade unions, but to legislate a permanent cut in workers’ wages. The new method of calculating the minimum wage will be based on EU guidelines and memorandum laws that previous governments have implemented. Laws that abolish collective bargaining and dismantle the fixed daily working time of 8 hours and 5 days, to impose a 6-day working day and between 10 to 13 hours of work.
In parallel to the destruction of collective bargaining, an ongoing dismantling of public services is taking place, further privatising strategic sectors such as health, education, energy, water, transport, social security, infrastructures and civil protection services.
Therefore, APFUTU send solidarity and support to the general strike called for 20th November, to denounce the plundering of the public sector, the destruction of collective bargaining, and to denounce that the working class does not want to be an accomplice of imperialist wars, which carry out genocides like that suffered by Palestine with the only aim of building a geopolitical order at the service of the interests of big capital.
For all these reasons, and being very conscious of the important role played by the trade unions affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions, we claim that APFUTU will continue to work to build international relations based on respect for the rights of all countries and all people, and which place at the centre the sustainability of the planet, which is seriously threatened all over the world due to the neo-liberal policies of capital accumulation.
