Closing Statement of PAME Congress

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There are few times when the title of an introduction so vividly describes what happened in a live debate. So yes, what we experienced for two days was the living militant expression of the rise of class struggles.

To those who seek saviours and messiahs, to those who slander the class struggles, we say it clearly: The workers’ – people’s opposition is here. We will take on the full and win against the anti-worker policy that is here and is an expression of the strategy of the business groups for cheap, very cheap work, without collective bargaining agreements, working hours made of rubber, social security systems completely commercialized, sacrifices without end for the support of business profits.

Besides, its expression is also the imperialist war, which for the peoples is death, genocide, countless disasters, for them it is a way out to the over-accumulated capital, with active participation and sharing of the booty.

We now know who supports this strategy.

There can be no illusions: EU – NATO – governments – the parties that formed the whole anti-worker arsenal against us. Their people within the labour trade union movement, expressed by the sadly discredited leadership in the GSEE – ADEDY, who pretend to be the leadership of the working class, who have even given up on demanding the immediate needs of the working class.

We have lived through a lot in the past decade. One-party governments, multi-party coalition governments, “national salvation”, “social salvation”, right-wing – social democratic – left-wing.

We will fight fierce battles in the coming period against the attempt to manipulate popular anger by the forces of social democracy. And because we know each other very well here, no matter how much effort the employers, the media, the political system make to whitewash the sinful PASOK, they will not succeed.

Because no one forgets that this party voted for all three memoranda, sometimes with ND and LAOS, sometimes with SYRIZA. Because nobody forgets the hundreds of anti-worker laws it has passed, the repression against the workers’ struggles. Nobody forgets the dirty mission in the workers’ trade union movement. When in the capitalist crisis it said that “strikes have finished”, when it signed the National Collective Agreements with slashed wages under the pretext of not losing the marriage allowance. Then, in the midst of the pandemic, it closed the unions in the name of health measures and disciplined the repressive measures. When the trade unions were preparing the strike against the Hatzidakis law, they said that there was no bill, that PAME was scaremongering. When the tragic crime in Tempe happened and they refused the strike uprising, recording one of the most shameful pages in their already shameful history. And they did all this with the support of the ND and the Syriza factions.

They reached a few months ago to compete the GSEE and ADEDY in strike-breaking to undermine the workers’ struggles. And they can’t help it. Those who don’t say a word about the war today, tomorrow when things get tough they will call for us to bow our heads and sacrifice in the name of unity and the national goals of capital.

A bill is coming that will permanently abolish the possibility for the GSEE to sign a National General Collective Labour Agreement and they will complain to the Minister of Labour because the Occupational Insurance Fund is not going ahead. But what can one expect from the labour traitors who have made the profitability of business groups a sacred value.

It is time to test our own strength, without looking for saviours – solutions from above. This power exists, it is in front of us with a line of orientation against their strategy and politics. This expresses the framework of struggle that you have and we agree, it unites us in the struggle. The fixed daily time – reduction of working time – disengagement from war – out of the slaughterhouse etc. We with actions and not with words. As in the Port, in the trains, it is important that there is a vanguard, which responsibly expresses the feelings of the people, as we heard here today the teacher, our soldiers who received the 15-day punishment medal, etc.

This is expressed in our orientation and our decision to join forces in joint action, in forming a social alliance on the major fronts and in the framework we agree on. The discussion during these two days has brought out a wealth of interventions and mobilizations of the workers with the popular strata of the town and village. This was not only highlighted in the speeches of their representatives, but first and foremost by the representatives of the trade unions who took the lead in organizing these struggles. This fills us with responsibility and highlights the necessity for the trade unions to put even more emphasis on joint action with those affected by the policy of the monopolies.

It is expressed in the greater rallying of unions, federations, workers’ centres, trade unionists in PAME – in the class struggle by striking the deadly embrace of the state and employers in the workers’ organisations.

It is expressed in the change of correlation in more areas with action – struggle. The correlations are not changed by words, but by actions as our fellow workers have described vividly – essentially – clearly and clearly as the fighters of our class know how to do, from MIMIKO in Evia, from Arivia in Drama, like our colleagues in HHTO, like our colleagues in Metallurgists, port workers, like all the colleagues and comrades who took the floor in an amazing – living transfer of experience that we have experienced two days ago.

Colleagues, colleagues

We call:

Join us to grip tightly in the chain of struggle to get more unions into the hands of workers – in the big workers’ centres and federations facing elections in the private and public sectors, in large and small unions.

To decisively strengthen the degree of organization, the creation of new unions. The organization of the most oppressed, women, immigrants, young children in the tourism season and in other sectors that are subjected to the most brutal exploitation. This is where we will judge, this is where we will be measured, not in big words. This is how we must be counted, in the great debt we have to organize our class that is at an all-time low of organizing even though we struggle with gods and demons. The experience that has come has revealed, as in Santorini for example, that our work is going well.

We need a decisive step in the functioning of the unions. This will happen when we organize the struggle, when we are on the road of struggle, when we work out the frameworks of struggle, when we organize mass – collective processes and more. This is the class school, this is where we should all study.

Onward to the greatest massization and militancy for a movement emancipated, regrouped, protagonist. Not to accept to pay for their crisis – not to become meat in their cannons – to put forward our own needs based on our time.

This is the living expression of the current of questioning the dominant politics. The working people’s opposition is here!

So we call on all trade unions, on all trade unionists who are concerned, 25 years since the creation of PAME something new has been born and is growing. This should go everywhere, to all workplaces, to all workers. The lies are over, on 20 November we should cause a real earthquake with the slogan: “Money for wages – health – education, out of the slaughterhouses of war”.

 

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