GREEK WORKERS FIGHT BACK

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: may 2010 :: RMTnews 20 In exchange for a joint European Union/International Monetary Fund financial bail- out, Greek workers are facing unprecedented attacks on living standards, huge public spending cuts, reduced pensions and wages as well as higher retirement ages. These massive austerity measures are being portrayed as the price being paid for the £94 billion bail-out to stop the country going bankrupt as a result of spiraling sovereign debt. But proposed cuts of £26 billion are threatening all public services and have sparked general strikes and some of the biggest demonstrations since the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1974. At one demonstration in Athens, All Greek Federation of Railway Workers organising secretary Panayotis Latropoulos said that the government was privatising the rail network in line with EU directives. “They are trying to privatise our railways and destroy everything that has been built in the last hundred years. Basically, the rules of the European Union are very bad for the poorer countries like Greece. “We used to have sixteen thousand rail workers now thousands are being axed,” he said. Greek seafarers unions are also locked in a battle with the government over wide scale social dumping in Greece’s large maritime sector and over the right to strike. Powerful shipowners are cutting jobs, training and pension contributions while brining in non-unionised exploited foreign labour. Meanwhile the government is handing them huge subsidies by cancelling debts, offering cheap fuel and other handouts. Government-backed courts also attempted to ban strike action last month launched in protest at the cuts. However seafarers unions in the PAME federation took strike action anyway in protest at the latest attack on trade union rights. A PAME statement outlined its determination to build a popular coalition. “We demand a maritime policy based on people’s needs, the nationalisation of the shipping industry and for workers’ rights to be enshrined in law,” he said. EUROZONE CRISIS Problems in Greece began when it fiddled its books in order to join the European single currency, which demands a budget deficit of no more than three per cent of gross domestic product as laid out in the draconian EU Maastricht treaty. Inside the eurozone, Greece has no control over interest and exchange rates, these are set by the European Central Bank (ECB), an EU institution. But these crucial economic decisions are made to suit the needs of ‘core’ EU states such as France and Germany and not so-called ‘periphery’ states like Greece, Portugal, Spain and the others. As a result, today the Greek deficit is 13.6 per cent and its debt has been downgraded to ‘junk’ status. As a result Athens owes French banks around £70 billion and German banks around £40 billion and any bail-out will be used to pay off debts rather than defending public services. In effect the EU is protecting Europe’s largest banks. Moreover, in the eurozone, Greece can no longer devalue its currency. Greece and other struggling eurozone countries can only slash public spending and raise taxation, sending their economies into further crisis. Last year Baltic state Latvia carried out the required cuts demanded by EU rules, resulting in a 30 per cent cut in public sector jobs and the remaining workers receiving a 25 per cent pay cut. Communist Party of Greece (KKE) general secretary Aleka Papariga spoke for many labour movement figures when she pointed out that “it is impossible to have any pro-people, popular development within the structure of the European Union”. “The Greek working class cannot solve the problems of the whole of Europe but can solve the problems of Greece and offer our solidarity to workers elsewhere,” she said. BAIL-OUT EU finance ministers have agreed a multi billion pound rescue package, in an attempt to stem the European debt crisis, which began in Greece, from spreading further. Ministers agreed to a scheme of government-backed loan guarantees and bilateral loans worth up to £700 billion provided by eurozone members. GREEK WORKERS FIGHT BACK Greek trade unions lead the fight against European Union demands that any bail-out of the crisis-hit country must be accompanied by savage attacks on the working class SOLIDARITY: All Greek Federation of Rail Workers president Nikolaos Kioutsoukis and national organising secretary Panayotis Latropoulos march in Athens against rail privatisation and job cuts