PAME, a member of the WFTU, representing the class movement in Greece, expresses its solidarity with the mobilization of French unions and workers on October 17 in Paris, at the forefront of which are the member unions of WFTU in France.

Dear Colleagues,

We congratulate you for this very important initiative that “embraces” the whole country. We have been following for a month now its “stations” with mobilizations in Marseille, Lyon, Lille and the French North and wherever else the heart of the working class in France beats for the right to work with dignity and other actions for the protection of unemployed, against redundancies and the criminalization of trade union action. We are sure that the thousands of workers who participated will converge in Paris on October in a large working class mobilization.

We are already seeing the attack on the working class intensify under the pretext of the coronavirus pandemic. The capitalists want once again to make the workers pay for the economic crisis, the crisis that the capitalists themselves created by chasing profit. In both Greece and France, there are thousands of layoffs while many workers are in the miserable status of shift work with few wages per month. In both countries, governments and the state are taking steps to prevent popular backlash by challenging the right to demonstrate and strike, chasing trade unionists and seeking to join unions. At the same time, large business groups are enjoying subsidies, tax breaks and all the tools to further destroy labor relations (teleworking, etc.) as they prepare for the billions they will receive from EU “recovery packages”.

In the face of this situation, we believe that the struggles of the workers in each country and the international solidarity between the workers are the only possible way out. These struggles can bring to the fore the needs of the workers. Because as you say in France, dear colleagues, in the pandemic it seemed that nothing works without us workers. No bosses came behind the machines in the factories. No boss sat behind the wheel of trucks, or behind supermarket counters. As we say in Greece, without the workers no gear turns, that’s why we can live without bosses.

PAME expresses its solidarity with the demonstration of the workers of France on October 17.