PAME CALLS FOR THE EDUCATION-WIDE STRIKE ON WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER!

12:00 PROPYLAIA, ATHENS, AND IN TOWNS AND CITIES ACROSS GREECE!

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TEACHERS – PARENTS – SCHOOL STUDENTS – UNIVERSITY STUDENTS – UNIVERSITY WORKERS TAKE TO THE STREETS AS ONE FIST!

WE CALL ON THE LABOUR CENTRES AND TRADE UNIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO SUPPORT THESE MOBILISATIONS IN EVERY WAY!

Money for wages and education, not for war and the profits of the few!

On 21 October, Education takes to the streets! Because:

• Christmas is coming, yet thousands of vacancies and shortages remain unfilled
• Lessons cannot be taught properly in classes of 25, 26 or 27 pupils
• Schools are barely scraping by, since funding for education is minimal
• School buildings are poorly maintained, in some cases unfit and dangerous, as was shown in Gkrava, Lamia, Korydallos, Vasilika, Pedini, Acharnes and elsewhere in just the first 10 days of October
• Teachers cannot live and work with dignity on these wages, nor cope with the outrageous cost of fuel and basic foodstuffs, let alone rent and transport
• The targeting of teachers and the devaluation of their pedagogical role continue, along with burnout, prosecutions and disciplinary proceedings in response to their just demands
• The government is preparing a new system for graduation and university admission, with triple Panhellenic exams (in the second and third years of upper secondary school, on top of the existing Panhellenic exams), turning schools into one vast examination centre
• Only 5% of the many thousands of students in higher education have a room in a student residence
• Thousands of families are forced to dig deep into their pockets so their children can study, as no meaningful measures are provided to support students
• There are over 3,500 administrative staff vacancies in the universities, and the government intends to hand administrative services over to contractors

Colleagues,

Let 21 October become a day of united, mass popular, education-wide struggle. Our needs do not fit into the costed programmes presented by the government, or by the convenient opposition. They do not fit within the EU’s fiscal caps.

The “stability” the government talks about means making permanent the energy poverty, the high cost of living, the thousands of vacancies in schools, the inadequate earthquake-safety inspections, the humiliating wages and the woefully insufficient appointments. The ND government is pressing ahead with the establishment of private universities, further devaluing our children’s degrees! At the same time, it has opened the way for revising Article 16 of the Constitution, with PASOK’s agreement. This revision will remove every remaining obstacle to the establishment of private universities and to the business-style operation of public universities, and will effectively relieve the state of its responsibility to fund higher education.

They want us to accept all of the above as normal. But our lives cannot revolve around the crumbs that fall from the table of the big business groups, which grow rich at our expense and post one profit record after another. Our lives cannot depend on the leftovers of the billions that go to the war industries for armaments and to military research preparing a new round of wars, all for profit.

Today, in the age of Artificial Intelligence, every possibility exists for us to live with dignity rather than in misery.

But we must not simply be indignant. We must fight to win everything that we, our children, our pupils and our students are entitled to. Let schools and universities become centres of struggle, collectivity and solidarity against all those who are making our lives miserable. Let us not allow fear, despair or the fascist poison to take root in them.

On 21 October we take to the streets together with the teachers and demand:

• Immediate filling of all vacancies in schools. Fewer pupils per class. Reversal of class mergers. Permanent appointment of all substitute teachers.
• Generous funding of education from the state budget. Private interests and sponsors out. Not a single euro from the pockets of parents and teachers for schools’ operating needs.
• Tax-free heating oil for all schools, write-off of school debts to public utility companies, and free electricity and water.
• Quality school meals for all children, and hiring of dining staff in all all-day schools.
• A comprehensive programme of earthquake-safety inspections, maintenance and construction of schools, funded by the state budget. Safe schools for all children. Safety certificates issued by the competent state bodies.
• 20% wage increases, restoration of the 13th and 14th salaries, and restoration of the pay step stolen in 2016–2017.
• Construction of housing for teachers. Until then, a housing allowance and hotel accommodation. Free travel for teachers to and from school, including exemption from tolls and ferry fares.
• Withdrawal of the unacceptable Ministerial Decision that puts huge obstacles in the way of school trips, and of the circular on the kindergarten timetable.
• An increase in annual state funding, plus an emergency allocation to all universities to cover operating and heating costs and strengthen student welfare.
• A cap on rents. An increase in the housing allowance and wider eligibility, by abolishing the academic criteria and raising the income thresholds.
• Free accommodation for every first-year student who cannot afford housing, in residences, hotels and elsewhere, secured under the responsibility of the state and the university rectorates!
• Renovation and expansion of student residences. Use of university and state-owned property to create public, free residences that meet students’ needs.
• Immediate mass hiring of administrative staff in the universities, and permanent positions for contract workers.
• A genuine upgrading of studies. No to private universities and to the revision of Article 16 of the Constitution.
• No to the deregistration of students.
• An immediate end to all prosecutions related to trade union activity and the right to strike.
• Greece’s disengagement from the war plans of the US, NATO and the EU. Bases out! Not a single soldier beyond our borders. Freedom for Palestine.

We are the many. We are the thousands who live and think alike.

We must become ONE FIST in order to WIN!