The announcement by the prime minister, who took on the role of both negotiators, of an increase to the minimum wage of 1.66€ per day is a provocation for every working-class family that struggles every day, unable to respond to the tide of inflation.

This increase not only is far below the wages workers were receiving 13 years ago but also far below from the growth rates of inflation, which plunder workers’ incomes on a daily basis, especially in recent months.

The needs of the workers cannot enter the millstones of competitiveness and the “resilience of the economy”. The resilience of the working people has already been zeroed!

It is a matter of necessity and real substance for the workers and for every trade union organization to increase the pressure on the government and the business groups for the signing of the National General Collective Bargaining Agreement (EGSSE) at 825€, for the signing of sectoral and business contracts with substantial increases in wages, with increases that are greater than the wave of price increases in basic goods, electricity, energy, fuel, tickets, etc.

Here and now the disgrace of the regulation of the minimum wage by the government must stop! To reestablish free collective bargaining. Workers with their struggles must not accept life with crumbs, not to compromise with poverty. To put in the center of the collective struggle the abolition of all anti-labor laws, to put in the center of the struggle the abolition of unpaid overtime, to fight for the restoration of the principle of the most favorable contract, the three-year benefit, the confirmation of Sunday holiday, the effective protection of the unemployed and measures to protect public income