Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the leadership of PAME and the class-oriented trade unions of our country, we would like to transfer our militant greetings to all the participants of the WFTU Presidential Council.

 We believe that the WFTU action review for 2012 is rich in actions.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this important meeting of the Presidential Council because we have demonstrations in all cities of Greece on March 9, and of course in Athens a demonstration and a rally will take place. Also the Congress of the Federation of which I am a member will take place on the same days with the Presidential Council.

 Dear colleagues,

The big monopoly groups and their political staff in Greece and in Europe prepare a life of hell for the working class, without any rights, without collective contracts.

 They particularly want to take away from the youth, all the vividness, all its energy and to repay them with starvation wages, and by this, creating huge profits. They want the working class without collective struggle, without trade unions, bent to their knees, being subjugated. They want the working class to live by the moto “to have a job no matter what”. They want the working class to bow before the capital and its power and to believe that there is no alternative.

 In our country, and in all the countries of Europe, unemployment increases rapidly. Thus, the claim of the government and the E.U. that through the reduction of wages and the extension of flexible forms of employment they would stop unemployment is revealed as a huge lie. Entire regions have become graveyards of closed factories and corporations.

 As if these sufferings were not enough, the government of our country imposes new taxes. It prepares to proceed to seizures of houses for the benefit of the bank capital. The new tax measures also attack the self-employed who are unable to pay the new taxes and they are eliminated by the activity of big coorporations.

 The struggle for Collective Contracts is an important battle. It has to do, among others, with the will of the working class to counterattack the capital’s aggressiveness. Their planning is a choice of strategic importance. It is a struggle at national and sectoral level whose results will be judged each time by the correlation of forces and the good planning, by the organization and the militant attitude of our forces. We do not underestimate the difficulty of this struggle. The changing of the correlation and the raising up of the organizational level of the working class are important issues.

 The Collective Contracts were key issues for the class-oriented struggles. Within this struggle, within this conflict the working class was forming all of its rights, according to the correlation of forces every time. It strengthened its unity, its education for the terms and conditions of the struggle. It distinguished friends and enemies; it strengthened the confrontation with the governmental and employers’ trade unionism.

 We know that the struggle will be long-lasting and difficult. So, there is hope in our struggle, there is the force that can reverse the anti people policies. This struggle will surely have continuation and escalation.

 The class-oriented labour movement of our country (with whatever weaknesses we might have), the Federations, the Regional Trade Union Centers, the dozens of trade unions with the thousands of working men and women, struggle every day in the workplaces. Thus, they put a small brick to the organization of the working class, to the concentration of forces, to the revealing of the damages done by the governmental and employers’ trade unionism. Opposing to the terrorism and authoritarianism of the government and the employers.

 The class-oriented labor movement shows the perspective that our struggle should have, for a path of development that will release the workers from the chains of the monopolistic groups and from exploitation.

We want to set one more question to the working class and to all of you and to answer it: Who serves the policies that the governments and the E.U. follow?

We answer that the governments and the E.U. serve the interests of the capital and that those are at the expense of the people.

 There are trade union leaders, such as the ETUC, who say that we can live a little better together the “healthy corporations” the workers. Together the E.U. and the working class. These trade union leaders aim at disorientating the working class, leading it to compromise.

 But the developments themselves confirm one thing. Exit from the crisis cannot exist in favour of multinationals and in favour of the workers. You cannot be together with the interests of the capital and with the rights of the people. They all lie; they consciously deceive the people. One-wayroadis the counterattack to the monopolies, the struggle to create obstacles to the antipopular policy, with popular alliance, for the disengagement from the E.U.

 The working class, the popular strata should show no tolerance, no support to those who talk about such a development. Nobody should wait for better days from the big capital, the E.U. and their governments. People have nothing common with them.

 Dear colleagues,

We live in a period characterized by two main elements:

1. The manifestation of the deep economic crisis of capitalism in the E.U. countries (other countries are affected more such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and others less) but also in the U.S.A and in Japan. This is a cyclical capitalist crisis, which is manifested after a period of generalized antipopular restructurings since the early ’90s with the Maastricht Treaty, and contributed to the concentration of huge profits for the capital, with demolition of labor conquests. The results are: business closures, dismissals, poverty, crushing of labor rights. The unemployed people in Europe reached 25 million. In these circumstances, the big capital, the E.U. and the governments (social democratic and neoliberal) have launched a ruthless war against the working class and the popular strata, to exit from their crisis.

2. The increasing aggressiveness of imperialism with wars and interventions. Either the United States of America, or the NATO, or the E.U., either neoliberals govern, or social democrats, they do not hesitate to bring whole populations into bloodbaths to satisfy their imperialistic interests. The developments in Syria are part of the imperialist plan for the “Big Middle East”, elaborated by the NATO, supposedly to democratize the countries of Middle East and North Africa. In essence, this plan expresses the inter-imperialist contradictions and rivalries on how imperialists will gain access to the energy sources, how they will shape their spheres of influence, how they will engrave new borders. Balkans, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. have faced the same situation. The Aegean and the Balkans are in crucial situation. All these, however, have nothing to do with the interests of the peoples of the Balkans. On the contrary, they lead to tensions and wars.

At the same time hundreds of thousands of workers dynamically protest in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and elsewhere.

Today there is a need, more than ever before in the history of Europe, for a class-oriented pole to be set up in every country of Europe, coordinated by the WFTU European Regional Office.

We, as PAME, will contribute with all our powers to help to this direction.

Dear colleagues,

A few days ago the Executive Secretariat of PAME met with our comrades who are elected in the TUIs of the WFTU. PAME participates in the 10 TUIs. We ascertained weaknesses of our action and thus next to our trade union cadres who are elected in the TUIs a group of comrades will be set to support their work.

We decided to prepare specific documents on several issues such as the role of multinationals in medicine, in food, crisis and sea transportation etc.

Finally, we especially discussed about the TUI Tourism (HOTOUR) for which we are responsible. It has not presented any activity and for this reason we discussed with the comrade Manuel Montero from the WFTU Secretariat and we examine all the scenarios.

It is a fact that international relations bear great financial expense for our trade unions, particularly this period. But, like in the past, in the same way now the class-oriented trade union movement will find the way to coordinate its action and dynamically express its solidarity. PAME will continue to support the WFTU activity and from the economic campaign that we will make the next months, an amount will be for our international action.

Dear colleagues,

Finally, on behalf of PAME’s leadership and of the class-oriented trade unions of our country we would like to express our solidarity with the working class of Peru and thank for the hospitality the General Confederation of Peru.

Long Live the WFTU

Giorgos Perros

Vice President of WFTU

Head of PAME Executive Secretariat