Working men and women,

Young men and women, unemployed people,

            Now that it becomes clear that the government together with the E.U. and the IMF lead us to mass unemployment, poverty and degradation for the profits of the capital without expiration date, the struggle becomes a one way road for all of us.  

            PAME calls you to wander: Why, while we produce tremendous wealth that can satisfy all the popular needs and the potentialities of science and technology can provide even more, the workers become poorer and many productive capacities are destroyed? Why since we can all work, we can all work less working hours, we can have better wages, more leisure time, is happening the opposite? All these are happening because all the wealth that workers produce is reaped by the few. Because the capital that owns the means of production, produces for its profit and not for the popular needs. This is the cause of the crisis.

            The subjugated employers’ trade union federations (GSEE – ADEDY) told you that the crisis is induced by the mismanagement of the N.D. (conservatives). PAME was warning you that the crisis is caused by the capital way of production and that we will pay the capital economic crisis by the brutal attack at our expense, either PASOK (socialdemocrats) is in the government, or N.D. (conservatives).

            The capital crisis deepens and the attack becomes even more severe against our rights and lives. The lives of our own and our children. The government together with the E.U. and the IMF eliminate our conquests that we had gained through hard struggles.

            YOU MUST THINK!

            You must appreciate which line was justified based on who told you the truth. You realised that the more the class collaboration is promoted, the more the capital profitability is increased, the worse things are becoming for you and your children with painful consequences for your life.

            You should think who can you trust? Those who participated in the social dialogs – of deceit together with the governments and the representatives of the capital, which aimed to make us accept the antilabor attack against our social security rights without resistance – struggle? Or PAME which received furious attack when it symbolically blocked the fiesta of dialogue to reveal the premeditated crime against the Social Security system on November 2009? When it warned for the new storms?

            Who can talk you about salaries and working relations? The employers’ trade union federation in private sector (GSEE) that signed an increase of 70 cents in the minimum day-wage for workers, the same time that capitalists were multiplying their profits? Or PAME which struggles and proposes substantial increases for all the people and 1,400 euros minimum wage, which is the minimum amount to leave a decent life?

            Who can talk to young men and women? The employers’ trade union federations (GSEE – ADEDY) that supported the part-time employment, the hostage of the workers who have temporary forms of employment in public and private sector (contracts – stage), the flexibility of the working time? Or PAME which nonnegotiable suggests the human right to permanent and stable job while abolishing all the brutal flexible forms of employment?  

            Who must you believe about the Social Security system? Those who supported all the previous antilabour laws of the conservative and social democratic governments that increased the retirement age, reduced all the pensions, those who supported the loss of the reserve of the social security funds in the stock market? Or PAME that uncompromisingly called to abolish these laws because of their antilabor character and simultaneously asserted demands that meet our modern needs?

            Who revealed what do the privatizations mean? The employers’ trade union federations (GSEE – ADEDY) which said that the privatizations operate in your favour since the state own the 51%? Or PAME which revealed that privatizations would give to capitalists strategic sectors of the economy and would lead to increase in the price of basic services for the survival of the popular family (water, electricity, telecommunications etc.), dismissals, reversals of working relations?

            Who tells you about unity? The employers’ trade union federations (GSEE – ADEDY) which applauded the lies of PASOK (socialdemocrats) concerning the Social Security system, that they will not reduce pensions, nor increase the age of retirement, that they will not affect “mature” rights? Those who applauded the dismissal of the stage workers?

            Those who call for unity in order not to rally to PAME, the same time in the workplaces of public and private sector call for struggles of corporatist character, fragmentary, which are objectively impasse for the working class. They are characterized by the logic “everyone to be alone in order to be saved from the worst”. This attitude has eroded a part of the people’s consciousness, has led to defeat and compromise.  

            PAME has made every effort to enlighten the people on the brutal measures in time, despite the weaknesses. So that the working class to be organized, to prepare its counterattack. The situation would be much worse if there was not PAME. It has put many obstacles to the implementation of the antilabor choices many years now. It decisively contributed so that these measures will not be accepted by a large percentage of the popular consciousness. Many dismissals were cancelled.  

            The struggles of PAME resisted the employers’ terrorism, the governmental propaganda, the legal proceedings, provocations and slanders. The employers’ arbitrariness was moderated. A significant increase in the militancy of the working class was recorded. The struggles of PAME showed that it has formed a vanguard of workers who are ready to uncompromisingly conflict with the strategic choices of the capital.

Are these struggles enough for today? Certainly NOT!

            The indignation and condemnation of the unpopular measures is not enough today. Of course if there was another situation within the trade union movement, if the correlation of forces was in favour of the class-oriented trade union movement. If the degree of organization of workers within the trade unions was significantly higher. If the participation in the demonstrations was much more massive. If the decisive intervention of PAME in the workplaces had become workers’ case in a larger percentage. These measures, this invasion would find many obstacles, although it is a one way road for the big capital. There would be significant preconditions to cancel this antilabor storm in practice. We have the power to succeed in this direction.

            It is now the time that you should realize that:

The more the capital controls the means of production, energy, telecommunications, land and water.

The more the monopolies determine the price, the quality and quantity of foodstuffs.

The more the businessmen and the state which serve them commercialize goods such as Health, Education, Welfare etc.

The more the technological progress will be utilized for the benefit of the capital and the popular recreation and entertainment will be prey to the appetites of predators.

No better days will come for us.

You must abandon the political parties and trade unionists that hide you that plutocracy steals the wealth.  There is wealth that could satisfy all your needs. The aim of PAME and our struggles is the satisfaction of these needs for public and free Education and Health, a permanent and stable job for everyone, Culture, Sports, leisure and not the satisfaction of capital needs. 

            On this basis we call all the working men and women, young people, the poor popular strata to form a broad popular-labor front, which will ignore all the false sermons and threats to subjugate the workers to the targets of the capital competitiveness. A front that will not have illusions to think that only the euro and the IMF are the enemies. The political parties and trade unionists hide that these measures, this policy is a one way road for the plutocracy, either there is the euro and the Memorandum or not, that the measures applied today have been designed many years before the Memorandum. It was and is the strategy of the E.U., PASOK (socialdemocrats) and N.D. (conservatives) for cheap labor force.

            PAME calls all the workers to struggle together, regardless of labor relation, sector, speciality and other separations. There is a need to strengthen the working class unity today. To be expressed by creating committees of struggle at every working place, every sector to confront the consequences of the attack we suffer and particularly to open the perspective for the change of class in the authority. This is the kind of unity that we need. PAME struggles for such unity.

            The working class is the social force that can organise the struggle with content a planned economy which will be organized by the working class and its allies. This planned economy will have as its target to magnify all this progress, all the advantages that technology offers today and put them in the service of the popular prosperity. It will not waste working hours to produce products that will be useless for the popular needs. Working forces will not be destroyed in unemployment. The motive of this road of development will be the popular prosperity and only this.