Dear brothers and sisters,
On behalf of the leadership of PAME and the class-oriented trade union movement in Greece we want to take this opportunity during the Presidential Council of the WFTU, to thank you for the support and the solidarity that you have provided us with, during the long-lasting and hard struggle of the working class and the people of Greece.
The livelihood of the people has changed rapidly over the last period. The official unemployment has reached 27%, the privatizations and the reforms in the public sector have destroyed the Healthcare, the Education, the Social Services. The over-taxation, the high prices of the essential goods and the services have pushed for the expansion of poverty. The salaries and pensions have dropped up to 45% while the cost of life increases. Neofasism grows within the “deep state”, the lumpen elements and the blind rage.
The objective of PAME, for which we have dedicated all our forces and efforts, is the reconstruction of the workers movement and the promotion of the social alliance between workers, peasants, self-employed, for the construction of a powerful front of resistance and counterattack. Thus, our forces are struggling for the organizing of every workplace and every neighborhood. We are already within all large factories and industries, inside every poor neighborhood.
Your support over the years has provided us with extra power and has strengthened our struggle against the policy of the Greek government (a coalition of neoconservative and socialdemocratic parties), against the European Union, the IMF and all the mechanisms that seek the impoverishment of our people as a means to overcome the capitalist crisis.
Also, on the opposite side of the workers and on the side of the European Union, there is also the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the European Organization of the ITUC, which invests by all means to the defending of the European Union and the disorienting of the blame for the situation of the people of Europe. ETUC tries to hide the strategic agreements that have been signed by the governments in the framework of the EU for the support of the European monopolies and their profiting out of all strategic sectors of the economy (energy, transport etc.), as well as the growing imperialist intervention of the EU and the member-states in wars in Africa, in Middle East. During a tsunami of anti-workers and anti-people’s legislations, the ETUC tries to create a pathetic movement, a weak movement, a disoriented movement which will not be able to see what its interests and rights are. It will be waving around according the one or the other plot of the ruling class.
Colleagues,
We appreciate the action of the WFTU for the year 2013. We believe it was positive. The WFTU continues to grow steadily and make stable steps forward. It affiliates more Organizations day to day, it expands in more countries, it supports more workers, it supports the class-oriented trade union movement.
We need to put extra effort for the Sectoral Organizations, the TUI’s. On our behalf we need to criticize ourselves negatively for the status of the TUI of Hotel-Tourism, whose leadership and offices are in Greece. For objective and subjective difficulties, the TUI has remained stagnant and has not developed the action it should have.
From our side, we support the Action Plan of 2014. It is an ambitious and rich program focuses to the problems of the workers.
In our aim to fulfill this program, we will make an effort to add more initiatives for the Balkan countries and the Mediterranean.
Seeing the situation in Europe, we must strengthen the presence and the action of the European Office of the WFTU. We must build the coordination and the common action of the workers and the people of Europe against the European Union, against the interests of the monopolies. We must strengthen the solidarity with our colleagues that are struggling in various workplaces and sectors.
We propose that the WFTU and the European Office organize a Campaign ahead of the elections in the EU on May 25th for the exposure of the character of the EU. To build the awareness of the workers for the strategic agreements of the EU and their results in their everyday life. To call them to express their resistance to the EU and its policy.
We also believe that the International Action Day of the WFTU is a crucial event. We support the main topic to be the Unemployment and to raise demands for the unemployed people since this is a burning issue for the working class across the world. We believe that all the members of the Presidential Council, the Regional Offices, the cadres of the TUI’s and the affiliates of the WFTU must contribution all their efforts to strengthen this day and multiply the activities taking place on October 3. The PAME in Greece will take specific initiatives at that day as well.
Dear brothers and sisters,
You already know that the cuts in salaries, the dismissals etc. that are applied in Greece have made the financial conditions of our trade unions much more difficult and has affected our international presence over the last period. However, we want to inform you that these two months, PAME is organizing a Fundraising Campaign during which we address hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, workers, unemployed, farmers, self-employed, pensioners and we ask them to support our activities with a small amount of money. The first signs of this effort are very positive and the Campaign has been successful. Hence, we want you to feel certain that we will continue to support financially the WFTU and the Central Offices as we have been doing until today, despite the difficulties.
For one more time, we want to thank you for your internationalist solidarity towards the working class of Greece and we reaffirm that PAME will continue to be in the frontline of the struggle in Greece and Europe. From our side we will also continue to express our solidarity to the people of Syria, Palestine, the African countries who are experiencing the brutal face of imperialism.
Thank you,
