A week before the start of a tide of labour action, the Greek Socialist PM Papandreou the Third has announced him government sees "no margin for blockades and strikes".
Greek farmers blockade the Bulgarian border, 2009
The Greek PM and leader of the Socialist Party (PASOK) and the Socialist International, George Papandreou has once again revealed the real face of his government by announcing that there are no "margins for blockades and strikes". The announcement came in Parliament in a speech rife with conspiracy theories about a combined speculators and foreign press war against greece which is supposedly undermining the country's sovereignty. Using PASOK's old populist anti-imperialist discourse salted with technocratic frill, the PM talked about a threat for "the people's sacrifices to been blown for ever to the wind". The populist rhetoric came combined with the proposal of a new electorate system that would deprive citizens from choosing their MPs, who would be instead chosen by the parties after the election results.
The pathetic combination of populism and technocratism that is the trademark of PASOK comes in full force as the farmers blockades enter their third week. Although only 15 out of the 30 original blockades remain, these are composed purely of independent farmers who have repudiated the official unions. For this reason they are despised by the bourgeois press as "anarcho-autonomous" and by the Ministry of Agriculture as "anarchosyndicalists". At the same time the greek government is under pressure by an approaching tide of labour action, starting with the February 10 strike of all private employees (ADEDY). Already dozens of strikes have been announced for February. Meanwhile, dozens of attacks against state and capitalist targets in Athens and Salonica are troubling the forces of repression. The targets have included UN vehicles, the political office of the ex-PM Mr Costas Simitis, political offices of the Conservative Party, banks and many expensive cars. The disruption caused by such attacks is augmented by the persistent farce calls for bombs (approximately two every day according to the media in Athens alone) which cause state buildings and all surrounding streets evacuated for hours.
The climate of tension in expectation of the announcement of harsh economic measures is further embittered by an extreme-right campaign against the proposed citizenship for 250,000 second generation immigrants. The coordination of extreme-right organisations and parties, combined with the arrest of the 44 fascists last week, and the imprisonment of one of them (an editor of a newspaper previously funded by the colonels' junta, and convicted aggressor) resulted last Saturday to an unusually massive fascist march in Athens. The fascists plan to repeat their show of power in the coming Saturday, this time using as their demo starting grounds the Propylea academic asylum, a symbolic disgrace for a century of struggles.
The trial of the murderers of Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Amfissa has been postponed due to the death of the mother of the Public Prosecutor.
Comments
on February 10 is the strike
on February 10 is the strike of public employees. i guess typographical error.
Oops from_gr is right, typo
Oops from_gr is right, typo here: ADEDY is the umbrella union of public employees.
Let me note as an update that yesterday a 21 year old man was arrested in relation to the NFC urban guerrilla case. As usual, the ridiculous reason for his arrest is some fingerprints on mobile objects in the so-called safehouse of Chalandri: a super-market plastic bag and a magazine.... A secret warrant against the man had been issued last month.
Regarding the trial in Amfissa, the murderer of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, pig Korkoneas, has been playing his last trick by playing mad; he has been transfered to a psychiatric unit in Athens under heavy guard, a move certain to postpone the trial once again.
Update: In yet another
Update: In yet another dramatic public speech the greek PM, stressing that greece is undergoing its greatest crisis since the founding of the Republic in 1974, has announced a series of austerity measures which effectively cancel all the pre-election promises of the Socialist administration: a freeze on public sector salaries, a freeze on public sector hiring and a rise in the age for pension. The measures are expected to infuriate public sector workers. ADEDY, the public sector umbrella union, has announced that the measures only come to validate its own stance and that its expecting even more reactionary measures in the future. The PM announcement, salted with the usual nationalist pleas for unity, comes a day after the national statistics office has announced that some extra 55 billion Euro debts that had until now been overlooked due to bogus accounting. The right-wing parties have given their support to the so-called "program of stability", re-electing today along with the Socialists the country's (decorative) President. On the other hand, the left-wing parties have refused any cooperation and have not given their vote for the re-election of the President.
On other news: A prison uprising has broken out in the prisons of Diabata, due to efforts by the authorities to extradite illegally a Russian prisoner. Riot police forces have arrived at the prison to repress the uprising. At the same time herders have blockaded the main entrance of the Salonica International Expo blocking the way of the Minister of Agriculture to the biggest annual agricultural exposition. Herders across northern greece have taken positions on the national highway blocking by way of milk trucks whose content is being unloaded on the roads. In Athens taxi drivers have performed a motorised protest march to the Ministry of Economics protesting against tax reforms.
Update2: The Diabata prison
Update2: The Diabata prison uprising has been repressed by brutal force - 15 inmates stand heavily injured by the invasion of riot police forces in the jail. The prison authorities have surpassed any limit of legality by refusing to transport the wounded to hospital. There is currently unrest in the prisons of Amfissa and the prisons of Trikala in response to the police brutality. It must be noted that a demo in solidarity to the struggle of the prisoners in Grevena was held during the weekend outside the special-security jail.
On other fronts, workers of the Kanakis food industry have occupied the main factory of the corporation in Volos and have called for an open assembly of workers and people in solidarity to their struggle. Kanakis is one of the largest food industries (pastries, breads etc) in the country.
On the agriculture front, farmers have moved their tractors to blockade the international airport of Salonica, the second largest in the country. Mobilisation of the farmers after the austerity announcements of the PM are expected to climax once again. 15 blockades continue to halt traffic in northern greece.
In response to the austerity measures the Greek TUC (GSEE) has announced a 24h general strike for the 24th of February. Its leader announced that "the newly elected government has retreated before the demand of the market, yet the needs of the people are too strong, too powerful and will be expressed in militant mobilisation".
thanks again for the updates.
thanks again for the updates. That's pretty big news.
Do you know what proportion of the total workforce works for the government? (I.e. in the UK it's about 7 million out of 30 million workers) An is there support in the population for these cuts? Or would most people support public sector workers struggling against them?
(Again in the UK there is unfortunately a fair bit of support for cuts in public sector workers wages and numbers, although what actual level of support is difficult to gain as the media presents such a distorted picture)
Thanks Steven. I just noticed
Thanks Steven. I just noticed its headlines in the BBC...an unusual airing of the greek troubles in the international mainstream media.
Checking on the National Statistics Office (infamous with regard to its credibility...) I found out that out of 4,300,000 official total work-force (this includes self-employed and bosses) approximately 1,000,000 are working in the public sector. The public sector workers are the most powerful in terms of labour struggle for at least half of them (i.e. permanently employed) cannot be fired. They are literally life-employed. On the other hand they are strongly tied to the official unions which are prone for bargaining with the politicians. The government has been clever to clarify that the salary cuts do not include health and education sectors, which are both crucial and very militant. The thing however is that the shock has been such that the big union bosses are now coming under pressure to prove they can stop this labour Waterloo or else risk looking completely impotent and loosing the support of the workers just like the farmers unions have.
Although the media policy towards vilifying public sector workers is long standing in greece too (since 1996 at least), the cuts have not been greeted with support by other workers etc. There is no public trust towards the state, and there seems little reason to attack public sector salaries when the military consumes 25% of the national budget. Of course this is a long standing commitment between the civilian power-holders and the military dating back to the end of the junta in 1974 which is not likely to be challenged by this or any bourgeois administration. The crisis in greece is not only economic but primarily social political and ethical. It is what people here call a crisis of meaning, and this has created a terrain which government ministers have called "a minefield". It is indicative that the PM took the step to address citizens via a televised announcement, a very rare event usually in times of invasion, uprising, natural catastrophe or government collapse.
cheers for the info. I just
cheers for the info. I just found this article which is claiming widespread support for the government in these austerity measures. However, it's always best to be very sceptical of these sorts of surveys, because if they did not come up with the result the media outlet commissioning them wanted (i.e. a right wing, anti-worker one) then they simply wouldn't publish it.also, phrasing questions in different ways leads to completely different answers. But here it is, for reference:
The particular poll has been
The particular poll has been the goverment's front propaganda weapon for some days. No polling in greece is reliable as all offices conducting political polls are controlled by parties...This is obvious through the consistent failure in both the national and euro-elections to predict the results by even a margin of 5% accuracy regarding the leading party. The whole market research scene is plagued by a lack of scientific method and scrutiny, but the political polls in particular are explicitly propagandistic. Vima the oh-s0-objective journal is controlled by DOL the major manipulative force in greek politics since 1974 (similar to to Springer complex in the ex-FDR, or Murdoch in the UK) now under the control of a notorious businessman who amongst other merits boasts the most corrupt office in the greek state: political commander of Mt Athos, the christian money laundrying priest's carcinoma in north greece. Kapa research used to be controled by the Communist Party until the med 1990s but is now under firm PASOK control.