People’s Health Will Not beGambled for the Profits of the Capitalists
We Take Our LivesIn Our Hands
The return of the pandemic in Greece came as a tragic confirmation of the predictions that the undermining of the health protocols for the profits of the business groups would create huge risks for the life and health of the people.
In these circumstances, the Government is provocatively trying to hide the responsibilities of its policy by talking about “individual responsibility” of the workers, especially the youth and the people for the new spread of the coronavirus. But their lie has short legs. Really, what is the “individual responsibility” of the employees in the companies that have become centers of dispersion because the employer and the government do not implement even the basic Health and Safety measures?
Some examples:
Meat Industry of Kavala 34 Cases
Halkidiki Olive Oil Factory 50 Cases
1st IRS office of Thessaloniki 17 Cases
Is it the responsibility of the worker who does not have to enough money till the end of the month to also pay for both tests and protective equipment? Should workers also pay for decontaminationof their workplaces? Should they also to have a job?
Characteristic of hypocrisy is the example for the workers in the archeological sites of the Ancient Agora in Athens. There, the government announced in front of the media mass checks for all employees after a case to a colleague. A few hours later, however, the workers complaint that the government, far from the limelight, suspended even this measure, throwing the “individual” responsibility back on the workers themselves.
With cases rising daily, the government is likely to try to prove that ship owners’ profits are causing immunity to the pandemic as it increased ship occupancy to 85%, and is putting travelers and seafarers at enormous risk.
At the same time, the situation in the hospitals is getting worse every day. Along with the huge shortages of medical supplies and staff, we are seeing an increase in cases among the health workers who are in the front line against the pandemic. Indicative are the 13 cases in doctors and nurses in the hospitals of Larissa.
The government has huge responsibilities because it gambled the health of the people for the profits of the hotel owners, opening the borders without conditions and prerequisites, loading the planes at 100% capacity, and only sampling checks to 1/10 of the incoming. And only after the situation escaped control the Government did speak of a tightening of the framework. Instead of taking measures to protect the health and life of the people, in the summer the Government brought to the Parliament and passed new anti-workers’ bills for the abolishment of workerssocial insurance rights.
The government also bears enormous responsibilities for the fact that all this time, which was won with enormous sacrifices by the people, they did not implement any measures to shield the Public Health System against the second wave of the pandemic. Today, 6 months later, 30,000 permanent doctors and nurses are still missing from hospitals, as are also the “obvious” simple means of protection (gloves, masks, etc.).
People and workers were quarantined, lost their jobs, turned their homes into schools and call centers, were left unpaid, living with only a small allowance, or going to work stacked on public transport, living in fear of unemployment , of dismissal, the daily stress of survival.
At the same time, the big business groups in health care are making huge profits, the big supermarket chains are swimming in money, while the big hoteliers, air carriers and others are being subsidized with billions, money coming from the work and sweat of the workers.
Workplaces have been turned into ghettos. Voices of protest and mobilizations of workers will be prosecuted by law. And as if all this were not enough, dozens of workers do not return home, to their families, from the workplaces that have become crematoria. Exploitation, intensification have intensified and there is a complete lack of security measures.
FOR EMPLOYERS THE WORKER’S LIFE IS A COST
They sacrifice the health of the people on the altar of profitability and competitiveness. For employers, health and safety measures are a cost. We are considered consumables.
The life of the working class is not to be gambled!
The life of the workers does not belong to the parasites, the capitalists!
We take our lives in our hands!
Now the unions, the federations, the Regional Trade Union Centers to take new initiatives. To become the shield of the workers
We will not leave any workplace, any worker unprotected. Be close to the workers, organize our struggle. With our organization, with plan and determination, we claim, we intervene, in every problem without any delay.
TRUST IN OUR STRENGTH
Massively and militantly to demand
- NO DISMISSALS-NO LIMITATIONS OF WORKERS’ RIGHTS!
- Now Provide free means of protection for all workers in the workplaces and impose all the necessary Health and safety measures.
- Mass, repeated tests on all workers in Healthcare, Public Transport, catering, tourism, trade, but also large workplaces (factories, etc.) at the expense of employers.
- Mass recruitment of doctors and nursing staff. Permanence of all contractors and health care assistants
- Open all the hospitals that have closed in recent years
- Plan to order the recruitment of all the structures of the private Healthcare sector under state control, to be implemented, in case of a rise of the pandemic.
- Urgent recruitments on public transport to increase routes so as to reduce congestion, while reducing the percentage of passengers on ships and planes and while reducing the price of tickets.
FIGHT FOR THE LIFE AND HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE
