PAME, the All-Workers Militant Front of Greece, in its latest announcement to the Greek working class says: “PAME, the class movement was throughout the previous period at the forefront of the fight against the attack of capital to labour and popular rights. In this direction we will continue because the problems and the factors that led the vast majority of the people in poverty, misery and the loss of rights and conquests are here.
Our opponent is here! The business groups, industrialists, ship-owners, the hotel-owners, shopping mall owners, all of them along with their governments and the EU put the burden and the consequences of the crisis and the debt on the backs of the people while they continue to become richer over the suffering and misery of the overwhelming majority of the people.
The opponent did not leave with the change of government. Using this change the opponent remains here ready and equipped. The congratulatory statements and the compliments from representatives of big capital to the new government come because of its commitments for new privileges, for a different mixture of management that will help them emerge from the crisis. They want to consolidate this entire anti-labor arsenal that has been created, so in conditions of recovery to have neutralized the militant-demanding voices of the workers. A key pillar of the new management is to learn to live with less, to be satisfied surviving with crumbs, as the new Finance Minister explained with his declaration of “austere life”.
The new ministers’ declarations in support ofthe “strong entrepreneurship” and the gradual restoration of the losses in accordance with “the growth of the economy and society” reveal their basic positions which are carefully hidden behind communication tricks.
In all sectors the employers’ offensive remains and is being intensified. The layoffs, thr unemployment, the dominance of flexible labour relations, the unacceptable “employment programs”, the wage-cuts continue to exist under a single goal: to continuously reduce the “labour cost” so as to expand and multiply the profits of the big business groups.
As long as monopolies and big business groups have the economy and the power in their hands, the labour-popular movement must be on permanent alert, ready to fight. To fight so as to recover our losses and to enforce the fulfilment of the contemporary needs of the working class.
Those who argue with their words and their positions that there are common interests between capital and labour and call for class cohesion, lie. It is mockery and deception for someone to claim with industrialists, big hotel
owners, bankers and ship owners keeping their profits and interests intact, that workers could hope for any relief and improvement in their living conditions.
The working class and its movement, with powerful, militant and collective, mass struggles in industries and workplaces all previous years has brought on the forefront its demands.
Demands which can be summarized as follows: “Reclaiming of all losses-We will not live with crumbs”
We move forward for wage increases everywhere!
- SIGNING of National General Collective Agreement with re-establishment to 751 euros for those who are paid the minimum wage as a minimum basis for all employers.
- No worker under the 751 euros.
- Abolish the outragious hunger wages, of 586 and 511 euros.
- Re-establishment of the lower sectoral wages at the levels before 2009.
- No employee without a Collective Agreement. To put an end to the modern guillotine of individual contracts.
- Abolish immediately all the anti-labour laws that destroy the collective agreements. Complete and obligatory enforcement of the collective agreements. Implementation of the after effect of the Collective Agreements until the signing of new Collective Agreement without any time limit. Elimination of the right of individual employers to sign contracts with wages below the sectoral collective agreements.
- Reset the Collective Agreement in the municipality workers. Collective Agreements in all branches of the public sector and restoration of the wages to pre-crisis levels and re-establishment of the 13th and 14th salary.
- Restore stable labour relations. Abolishment of laws that promote and enhance flexible working relations.
- “No” to the liberalization of working hours. “No” to the abolishment of Sunday as a day off.
7hour workday, 5-day- 35 hours work week.
- Internships for students with full pay, full labour, insurance and pension rights.
Defend and extend insurance and pension rights. Full restoration of the losses in pensions and lump sum.
- Abolition of all anti-insurance-rights laws and all applicable laws that destroyed Social Security and pensions, to put an end in the mechanisms that reduce pensions by 2015.
- Immediate cover losses, restoring 13th and 14th pension.
- The State to guarantee all pensions and benefits.
- The state and the big capital to cover all immediate needs of all insurance funds.
- Increase the basic pension of 486 euros to 600 euros.
- No employee uninsured.
- Return of the family benefits and other benefits of the Employment Agency (OAED) that were cut.
Immediate and substantial protection measures for the unemployed and their families.
- Immediate coverage for all the unemployed for the whole period of unemployment.
- Increase in unemployment benefit at 600 euros.
- The period of unemployment to be recognized as pensionable without charge for the unemployed, burdening the state and employers.
- Full and free medical care for themselves and their family unconditionally
- Rent subsidy for the period of unemployment, food support, clothing, school supplies, plumbing, heating oil by a state network for the unemployed and low-income workers.
- Cost-free movement for all unemployed to all public transport
- Banning of the disconnection of power, water, landline telephone, for all unemployed and unpaid workers.
- Suspension of all the financial obligations to banks and the state.
- Cancellation of debt interest.
- Stop sweatshop employment programs.
- Stop the vile regime of outsourcing workers. Close now the modern slave trades of temporary agencies.
- Create employment in the public and broader public sector for all employees who are suspended, without detrimental change in labour and wage rights.
- Elimination of all laws allowing mass dismissals and reduced compensations.
Relief of the working-class families from the extreme taxation
- No privatization, no transfer of public, social services and organizations to business groups.
- To put an end to the extreme taxations. Now abolish the House Tax (ENFIA) and the so called “solidarity tax”. Taxation of the big capital to 45%.
- Instant freezing of prices on all products and services and abolition of VAT with a corresponding price reduction in all basic items and products of broad popular consumption, removal of tolls, 50% reduction in tariffs of electricity, telecommunication, water.
- Abolition the compound interest on all loans, prohibition of auctions of first and secondary residence
- Immediate elimination of all taxes through the electricity bills. Stop the seizure and auction of homes of the working people. Abolish taxes on oil and gas.
- Total reconstitution of the Workers’ Housing Organisation with all its authority. Restart the construction projects of the Workers’ Housing Organization.
Exclusive Public – Free Health and Education
- Single, exclusively public and free modern healthcare system – Welfare, Preventive and Emergency Healthcare for everyone, funded exclusively by the state.
- Abolish any payment for Health services. Abolish the ticket of 5 euros at the entrance of the hospital, the 1 € in prescribing.
- Essentially health and safety protection measures at work, with corresponding infrastructure, state body Doctors, Labour Safety Technicians, nurses.
- “No” in the slaughterhouses of the Centres of Assessment and Disability Certification. Full coverage for all -whatever percentage of disability- to drugs, care, technical aids from the state and unemployment benefits to all disabled unemployed.
- Free prenatal care for all couples. Substantial and immediate measures for the protection of motherhood.
- Exclusively free public education system by eliminating any business activity.
- Expanding the network of public free nursery for all children.
- Free meals and accommodation for all students in universities in new, safe students’ dorms.
PAME also supports the demands of the self-employed:
- Freeze the debts to the Organisation of Insurance of the Self Employed (OAEE), to the state, banks and individuals. Capitalisation of debts, without additional surcharges and fees. Prolonged setting, with payments not exceeding in total the 10% of disposable income.
- Decriminalisation of debts owed to OAEE, abolishment of the corresponding laws.
- No seizure of primary residence. Suspension of commercial property foreclosures, equipment, vehicles and bank accounts for the self-employed who maintain their business.
PAME notes that whoever identifies the interests of workers with the corporate profits, whoever puts the commitments to the European Union over the survival and the dignity of the working people has passed over to the other side. The continuous pursuit of profit requires a disarmed labour movement, workers without rights, unorganized.
No government, no matter what profile it presents, can be stronger than the power of the working class when it demands its rights. No ground should be allowed to the disarming illusions that the capital which both in times of crisis and in times of growth steal everything from the working class, would now stand on the side as our rights are being handed over to us. Inaction and delay will allow room for new concessions, new losses will poverty and misery will be cemented.
The exploitative system does not change. It does not become more humane through governmental changes. From our actions, our struggles and demands depends our salvation, our decent life, permanent and steady jobs with full rights.
For workers to confront poverty and misery, to regain what they have lost, to demand what their contemporary needs there is only one way. The class unity and joint rallying and the decisive struggle against the capital and the political parties who serve it.
First priority must be the reconstruction of the labour-popular movement, the robust collective procedures of the trade unions and the adoption of demands against the profits of the monopolies.
All workers must have as a priority the need for struggle, the recruitment in trade unions, the organizing in the workplaces, the branches and the neighbourhoods which are urgent priorities for all employees.
Our strength lies in the unity of the working class, its alliance with the self-employed, the poor farmers, the youth and the women.
The Executive Secretariat , PAME
