This strike must become an issue for everyone of us, a starting point of new struggles, the beginning for the reconstruction of the movement based on the interests of our own class and the interests of the popular strata.

We must discuss, clarify and agree on how we will get rid of the loan treaties, the memorandums, the antilabour policies and the commitments of the E.U. We have to clarify the direction of our struggles and what kind of trade union movement we need. The trade unions rallying with PAME support and take as basis the following:

1. These policies and the measures that follow them, have nothing to do with the needs of the people of the country, the debts and deficits. They do not save any people from the worse.

These policies target only the recovering of the profits of the big monopoly groups. They realize their steady demand and plan of the European Union, for many decades now, for the liberation of the labour market, for cheap and obedient work force, without fundamental rights, to support their profitability. That is why they do not only compromise with the tax-robbery, the reduction of wages and pensions, the increase in the prices of consumable goods, the brutal cuts of the spending in Health, Education, Welfare, in every social benefit. They furthermore proceed to radical changes, like:

• The establishment of the basis of the minimum wage by government’s decision, which in essence means the abolition of the minimum wage and the Collective Agreements. Wages in the standards of Bulgaria and Albania for all workers in Greece.

• The complete abolition of the 8-hour working day and the definition of the working hours, days, shifts by the employer unilaterally, according to the needs of the enterprises.

• The reduction, to elimination, of the employers’ contributions to the Social Security Funds, the retirement age at 70 years, the reduction of pensions and the parallel increase of the stamps needed to ensure the minimum pension from 4.500 to 6.000 stamps. In essence, we are led to the complete reversal of the social character of the Social Security.

• The elimination of compensation for dismissals.

• The giving away of all the social services and public wealth, through privatizations, for the benefit of the big financial interests.

2. These measures are not the result of bad estimations, poor management, bigger or lesser capability of the managers of the crisis.

Those are measures that are necessary only for the capital, not for the workers. They come from the strategy of the European Union which sets its policy according to the needs of monopolies. That is why these measures are the same in Greece, Italy, Spain and in other capitalist countries, even in those countries which are not in the eurozone and there is no crisis.

For this reason it is not enough only to denounce these measures and struggle against their imposition, but we must struggle to overthrow the interests and the policies that impose them. We do not struggle for a better management of the antilabour policy.

3. The growth that they promise does not concern either the confrontation of the unemployment, or the improvement of the lives of the people. We reject it. This is a development that serves the profitability of the few, which is supported on our plundered incomes and rights. This is hell for the people. For this reason the purpose and goal of our movement, of our struggles is not the search of the one or of the other management of the rotten system. It can never be found a management that can make capitalism in favour of the people.

In the recent years we have met many managers, negotiators who serve the plans of the plutocracy: Simitis, Karamanlis, Papandreou and the co-governments of Papadimos and Samaras in Greece, Rrodi, Jospin, Zapatero, Berlusconi, Monti, Rahu, Aland and so many others in Europe during the last years and nowadays.

It is about time to say stop to the “rescuers” and to the illusions.

We do not tolerate to be led to misery although we produce all the wealth so as the capitals’ profits to be saved. We do not tolerate the natural resources to be destroyed or plundered, the wealth produced by the working class and the people of our country to be robbed and become savings in Swiss Banks.

That is why we do not accept any debt; we do not bargain any means of its payment. We do not ask for better memorandums, there are not such.

We demand the abolition of loan treaties and of memorandums, the disengagement our country from the “wolf-pack” of the European Union, the cancelation of the debt. They owe us; we do not owe them a single penny.

We struggle for a growth that will not have as its criterion the profit, but it will be based on our needs for full-time and steady jobs for all, with decent wages, pensions, leisure time, free education for our children, free health care ensured for our families, time for rest and security for the future. We struggle for a development and a production in favour of the people and not of the monopoly groups.

There are all the possibilities and the preconditions for a development of this kind, for a life like this.

4. We denounce and separate our positions and our responsibilities from the trade union leaderships, the GSEE and ADEDY (the governmental and employers’ trade unionism in private and public sector) who repeat for many years now the fairytale that we must make sacrifices in order to increase the profits, for a competitive economy that would supposedly bring jobs, social security rights, increase in wages. They have poisoned minds with the fraud of the “social dialogue”, they cultivated and continue to cultivate the logic of the lesser evil. They tell us that through the struggles we can not achieve anything, cultivating fatalism and compromise which has been and still is the greatest danger for our struggle and achievements. They are still talking today about socially fair sacrifices, for more balanced measures. They are still signing, even today, in the name of realism, reductions in our wages and rights. They bombarded the minds of workers with the illusions that the E.U. could become “a Europe of solidarity, with control of the markets” provided that the manager would change.

5. We struggle for Trade Unions that will be strong, massive, which will be trustworthy to workers, connected with the workplaces and with action for all the problems of the workers. We struggle for trade unions capable to stop the attack against our rights and achievements. Trade unions that will be more capable to resist against the attack of the employers and the state, released from the agents, the employers’ crutches and the logic of class collaboration. Trade unions that will be mass, decisive, in solidarity and common action with all the popular strata and through this way they will create cracks in the general line of the impoverishment of workers and will extract achievements.

We want trade unions that will rally all the workers, but they will be decisively against the development that serves the profitability and benefits of business groups, industrialists, bankers, merchants, ship-owners and the big business in general. Trade unions which will struggle against every imperialist union, such as the E.U. and the NATO.

We aim at the class-oriented rally and the unified action of all the workers in every sector and workplace, through this line, direction and goals.

With this direction and these goals we are building the social alliance and common action with the other poor strata.

With these objectives we give all our power for the organization of the general strike and we call everybody to participate at the strike demonstrations of PAME under the slogan:

NO MORE SACRIFICES FOR THE PLUTOCRACY

A way out and a policy for the people and not for the monopolies.

ALL IN THE DEMONSTRATION

AT OMONOIA Sq. 10.30a.m.

September 2012