We follow the struggle of the class-oriented labour movement in Greece.
The struggle of PAME constitutes an integral part of our own struggle. We express our solidarity with the strike of 48 hours, in this battle and struggle against the barbaric measures that are being promoted in Greece, such as the abolition of collective agreements, layoffs, cuts in wages and pensions, the wild tax policy, privatizations, the commercialization of education and health. Similar measures are being promoted in all countries in Europe and throughout the capitalist world.
These measures usually do not serve the national interest but the monopolies and transnational companies. We agree with the assessment of you that all these barbarous measures are being implemented to further cheapen the labor force, so that the workers and popular layers pay back again a debt that was not created by them, but by the subsidies, tax exemptions and loans to large companies. We struggle in our country as PAME struggles in Greece in order to make every worker understand, in order to make clear to the people, that the capitalist crisis is not caused by the debt, but because wealth and the means of production have been concentrated in the hands of a few, because the monopolies are becoming giant in all sectors.
The working class and peoples of our countries now reach the same conclusions, that these never-ending measures that generate poverty and misery are applied by both neoliberal and social democrat governments; that this trend is the same when there is memorandum, Troika, EU and IMF as if there is not; that the so-called unique way out proposed by the EU does not secure the workers and their rights, on the contrary, everywhere the capitalist path of development leads to wild measures against the people and new privileges in favor of the capital. We are not fooled by the rivalry among governments and among imperialists.
Those rivalries do not look after the interests of the working class, but instead they worry about which transnational corporations and business groups will lose less.
The experience of Greece and elsewhere makes it clear that the compromised forces of the labor movement following the ITUC and the ETUC promote class collaboration and consensus for the adoption of unpopular measures.
We agree with the direction of your struggle, that only mass popular organized labor struggle can prevent not only unpopular measures, but it can also overthrow the capitalist path of development, which only provides new benefits for the capital and suffering for the people. The spontaneous and individual actions do not provide solutions. Just the indignation and anger do not give a way out either. We need conscientious, organized struggle.
We express our support and solidarity with the strike of 48 hours that will stop production and will empty workplaces. We are inspired by the slogans you shout in demonstrations “the gear is not turning, without you worker; you can be without bosses”.
Militants of PAME
We express our solidarity with you and we support the strike struggle of the working class of Greece on October 19-20, struggling first in our own country to strengthen our own class struggle against our common rival the monopolies and transnational corporations.
For more information about the Congress of South African Trade Unions, visit <www.cosatu.org.za>.
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