PAME expresses its solidarity with the new strike of the Rail Workers of UK on July 27. Rail Workers in Great Britain have been on strike actions the last few months demanding pay rises against the huge wave of inflation and the huge increase in the cost of living. The private companies that run Britain’s railways over the years have been making huge increases in passenger fares, while at the same time cutting staff, leading to increased risks for workers and passengers and turning transport into an expensive privilege.
The just demands and strike action by workers in the railways and in a number of other sectors are being met with slander and intimidations from the business groups and the British Government. Indeed, in an attempt to intimidate workers and criminalise industrial action, the British Government is moving forward with a law that will allow companies to replace striking staff with agency workers. In other words, it seeks to legalise the hiring of contractors and the use of a strike-breaking army by employers against workers’ strike action. At the same time they are increasing fines to unions and trade unionists to the outrageous amounts of over £1 million for ‘lost profits’.
The loss of workers’ incomes, the dramatic cuts in our wages due to inflation, is a pursuit of big business and the governments that serve them in order to increase their profits and ensure their competitiveness.
On the other hand, the justifiable anger and indignation of the workers is being criminalised, persecuted and smeared.
The struggles of the workers of Greece, but also every struggle in every sector, country and region that questions the logic of subjugation, of living on crumbs for the profits of the bosses, are similarly attacked. Against the obstacles and attacks of Governments-Employers and in Greece the workers who rallied in their unions managed and achieved important victories and won Collective Agreements with increases of more than 20% in a number of sectors and companies.
Our rights will not be decided by the bosses and the governments that serve them! It will be decided and claimed by the workers themselves through their struggles and their unions, in conflict with the policies that serve the few and lead the many to poverty, unemployment and misery.
PAME supports the just struggles and demands of the rail workers of the UK and their strike on July 27.
