Dear comrades,
On behalf of PAME, the hundreds of Trade Unions, Regional Unions and National Federations that rally with us, we thank you for accepting our invitation and we welcome you to our meeting today to discuss developments and exchange views on joint initiatives and actions against the escalating antiworkers’ attack of employers-governments-European Union.
In our meeting today participate …unions from… countries, while we greet and welcome the comrades of the World Federation of Trade Unions for their presence.
We will note some of our main concerns and assessments based on the developments also in Greece and on the stance that we believe the working class movement should maintain against the attack we suffer on our rights, on our lives.
We believe that we are in a new capitalist crisis, which was accelerated by the pandemic but not caused by it. It is a given that the pandemic has escalated a situation that has not yet fully manifested itself, while at the same time the pandemic has been and is being exploited by the EU and governments to expedite a series of measures to ensure the profitability of business groups and block the expression of the growing indignation of the peoples and the workers, to prevent it from turning against their barbaric policy.
In these conditions, we ask the question: What do the governments of the EU countries have in common, apart from the fact that these countries count a total of hundreds of thousands of dead? An initial answer to this question is their policy. A policy characterized by huge cuts in public health systems, by extensive privatizations. (Details are given in the annex)
While the healthcare workers, the peoples of Europe are fighting the pandemic, fighting for life, the European Union and governments, as well as other imperialist centers, are using the pandemic for an unprecedented post-war campaign to support their monopoly groups and investments. In fact specific sectors are at the same time fields of manifestation of global competitions. We are witnessing even the issue of the vaccines becoming a tool within the competitions of the multinationals.
In particular, the EU, in the name of addressing the effects on the economy from the restrictive measures for the management of the pandemic, is promoting the Recovery Fund, which is essentially a Pan-European Anti-workers’ Memorandum that wants to restore the profitability of business groups by imposing wage and pension cuts and destroying working relations, the right to full time steady jobs.
The Fund's operating mechanism stipulates that before any funding - which no matter what, will go to the big business groups - Governments must submit a specific anti-workers’ plan that will ensure what they call a favorable, investment-friendly environment. All of us here, as workers, have experience that a“favorable investment environment” is a graveyard of labor rights, sterilized by trade union, collective, militant action.
And to be more specific, with the presentation of the measures of the recovery fund in Greece, the Government of Greece promoted a bill for the imposition of 10-hour workday and the abolition of overtime pay, regulations for the expansion of flexibility. The abolition of the 8-hour workday, Collective Labor Agreements, the Sunday - holiday for even more sectors as well as basic trade union rights are a huge blow to our rights and to the very purpose of the existence and action of the trade unions.
They seek to force workers as modern-day slaves to work 10 hours a day with unpaid overtime for almost 6 months, with the employer committing to giving a few days' leave in that period. The explosion of overtime work, along with the voices that are already calling for the next step of the attack on labor relations and income, which is, for "overtime pay on a reasonable basis", are the basis of impoverishment, of intensification, of essentially unpaid work.
They seek to turn the whole of Greece into a big special economic zone, where business groups will be completely free to employ workers whenever and however they want. They seek, by imposing individual employment contracts, the "free" as they say "agreement" between an employee and employer, to break the strongest bond that binds workers with their unions. We can all understand and we have considerable experience of what it means to be a worker alone in front of the employer, how vulnerable and defenseless a worker is to every claim of the employer.
A special issue is Teleworking, with consequences in working relations and the lives of the workers, and a significant impact on the structure of the workforce. We note this because it allows movements outside the urban fabric and also allows, for example, residence in Greece and work even abroad, while at the same time it transforms the place of residence into place of work.
With the changes in the trade union law, Government and Employers seek to block workers’ struggles. They promote e-registry and legitimize employers’ intimidations. They seek to give a decisive blow to the right to strike since it is imposed the unacceptable way of e-voting in General Meetings and Unions’ Board Meetings and also they legalize strike-breaking for most sectors. We have managed to delay this action with our struggles till today and now we have warned with a General Strike if this bill is submitted to the Parliament
We also enclose some examples of laws passed in Greece in 2020-21. We have similar examples in other countries, such as the law of universal security in France, the law on policing in the United Kingdom, the persecutions and dismissals of trade unionists in Italy, Turkey, the Basque Country and elsewhere.
We see similar examples being promoted in other countries of the European Union and we hope you will help us with your experience. And in fact we would like to note the following. It has been proven since last year that at the same time as anti-workers economic measures are being promoted in EU countries, governments are taking a series of measures amid the pandemic against the democratic and trade union rights of peoples and workers. They take measures to prevent the growing anger and resentment of workers. And here an answer must be given.
Positions presented by a number of forces and the ETUC forces in Greece such as "that the pandemic has no class features" are not only dangerous, but show that the employers and the forces that they control within the unions are working together to disarm and disorient the working class. It is characteristic that in Greece the forces of ETUC voluntarily quarantined themselves a year ago and we have not seen them since.
On the contrary, in these conditions, stood out the forces, the unions, which, despite the enormous difficulties, continued their action.The forces that were firmly in the workplaces, next to the workers.The unions that took initiatives, developed struggles and actions. They broke bans and protected workers as much as they could, they prevented measures, layoffs, theysaved lives!
For this action they received persecutions, punishments, dismissals, violence and the attack of the repressive forces. It is typical that in Greece, just a few days ago the President of the Metalworkers of Piraeus was fired, because he demandedfor his colleagues to be tested for Covid in the place where he worked, while also unionist doctors are persecuted because they revealed the huge shortages that exist in public hospitals. Doctors were fired in the midst of the pandemic because they fought with their unions for measures to support Public Hospitals.
In the face of this situation it is necessary for the militant unions to discuss and plan the coordination of action against the attempt of capitalists-EU- governments to impose a new Dark Age for the workers. To organize the fight for the defense of our health and our rights, for the militant celebration of workers’ May Day in Europe with strikes.
We believe it is critical need to strengthen the organization of the workers in the workplaces, which in our country is small, when we have the conditions to change it. It is important to form a militant front of Europe's trade unions that will not only oppose anti-labor policy but also claim:
Contemporary working and living conditions with rights.Fixed daily work time and reduction of working time. Hands off the 8hour/workday
Abolition of the antiworkers’ laws and reforms that were promoted and imposed the last years
Free collective bargaining without any state involvement, Collective Bargaining Agreements with significant increases in wages and securing important rights.
Protection of the health of all people.Protection of the health and safety of workers under the responsibility of the state. We fight for Exclusively Public and Free Healthcare with immediate requisition of Private Health Centers.
Measures for the safe operation of all levels of education with protection measures for the health of pupils, students, teachers
Ensuring the free and unhindered action of trade unions and trade unionists, against the escalation of repression and authoritarianism. The state and business groups have no right to interfere in the unions.
In this direction Workers May Day, in Greece will be a STRIKE on MAY 6, and we will honor the dead of our class, the victims of the pandemic, of the profits of the capitalists under the slogan of the workers of France, MAY 1, 2021:
THEIR PROFITS - OUR DEAD
WALKING ON THE PATH TO OVERTHROW THEM
SOME DATA ON THE DEVELOPMENTS
HEALTHCARE
- in Germany, only 29% of hospitals are public but even these, in the name of "autonomy", operate on the terms of a profitable business. From 1994 to 2016, hospital beds were reduced from 618,000 to 499,000, ie by about 119,000, while 321 hospitals were closed and many more are following.
In Italy, € 37 billion in cuts have been made to the public health system over the last 10 years, closing public hospitals and staffing health gaps reaching to 56,000 before the pandemic. More of 12 million people do not receive the necessary medical treatment and care for financial reasons.
-In the UK, Only in the period 2016 - 2020 were cuts in the Health system of 22 billion pounds. It is typical that in Great Britain, there are only 2.76 hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants, which is the second smallest size in Europe and only 2.8 doctors, which is the smallest in Europe.
- In Greece, the cuts in state funding of the Health system from 2009 to 2015 reached 7.3 billion euros, while at the same time 17 hospitals were closed and 9,000 beds were abolished. Only in the period from 2010 to 2013 the reduction doctors in the National Health System reached 35%, while today the shortages in public hospitals exceed 6,000 in doctors and at least 25,000 in nursing and other staff. Public structures of primary care and preventive medicine are virtually non-existent.
The result of these policies is that by the 6th week of 2021, a total of 515,519 deaths have been recorded in all EU countries, a number that exceeds in absolute terms the death toll in the USA. In the context of this macabre report of the second wave of the pandemic (which lasts from November 1 to February 19) and based on the calculation of the mortality rate (deaths / cases), Greece ranks first in the EU with 40 deaths per 1,000 cases. These data do not include the 3rd wave
Specifically, in Greece until November 1sthad died due to COVID-19, 626 persons while on February 19 there were 6,249, in a total number of cases 40,929 and 178,918 respectively. Indicatively for the same period in other EU countries the deaths per 1,000 cases are recorded as follows: Belgium 32, Germany 31, Italy 27, United Kingdom 24, France 22, Austria 223.
In a very short time the public health systems, due to chronic policies of underfunding and commercialization, collapsed, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. In France the death toll exceeded 900 and in Belgium 200 per day in mid-November, in Spain 500 in late November and 700 in early February, in Germany 1,200 in late December, in Great Britain 1,500 in mid-
January, in Portugal 300 at the end of January, while in Greece from November 20 to December 25 the death toll exceeded 3,100.
In fact, under the pressure of accumulated shortages, hospitals in Greece, in other EU countries and internationally have been transformed into hospitals of one disease, which implies the suspension of surgeries and diagnostic tests. According to the World Health Organization, at least 28 million general surgeries, 2.3 million oncology surgeries and 6.3 million orthopedic surgeries were canceled in 2020, while the diagnosis and treatment of non-communicable diseases, such as of diabetes, by 61% the treatment of neurological diseases and by 55% the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
MEASURES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Recovery Fund. A pact of 750 billion euros is foreseen, which is activated within the framework of the EU multi-annual budget for the period 2021 - 2027. This is the imposition of Memoranda on the peoples of Europe. With the money of Europe's workers, the Commission will finance business groups, and call on the people to pay with new cuts in wages, pensions and salaries
SURE program: In the last 12 months, among other things, the operation of the SURE program has started, amounting to up to 100 billion euros. In the form of soft loans from the EU to the Member States, it intends to "cover the costs directly linked to the creation or extension of national part-time programs" by helping to "recycle" unemployment and reduce unemployment. Employment from the wage "cost", but also in keeping demand at a certain level to ensure the turnover of business groups.
At the end of January 2021, the agreement for the amendment of the founding Treaty of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which had been pending for years, was signed, while the approval process by the national Parliaments remains. Among other things, the upgraded ESM is planned to take over
the role of "rescuer" of "last resort" for Eurozone banks that will face risks of collapse, since of course the other available means will have been exhausted before (recapitalizations, "haircuts", etc.). Under the new treaty, the ESM will be able to provide loans of up to 68 billion euros to the Bank Resolution Fund to finance the "consolidation" or liquidation of troubled banks. At the same time, the ESM is expected to take on an upgraded role in the design and monitoring of financial assistance programs in Member States, with "exchanges" of lasting memoranda for the peoples.
The European Commission has announced the launch of a series of new anti-popular measures with restructuring in the financial systems of EU countries aimed at managing the mass of "red" loans. As noted in the relevant decision (December 2020), given the impact of the coronavirus on the EU economy, the volume of non-performing loans is expected to increase across the EU, although the timing and magnitude of this increase remain uncertain ". In this context, the European Commission gives the "green light" for the establishment of "national asset management companies", ie so-called bad banks ("bad banks") to which will be transferred "red" loans and problem assets of banking speaking. This development comes to lighten the banks from the "weights", in order to stimulate the bank financing to the business groups, while at the same time, with the background and the processes for the Banking Union, the carpet is laid for the acceleration of the auctions for mortgages and business loans.
MEASURES OF SUPPRESSION AND RESTRICTION OF TRADE UNION RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS IN GREECE 2020-2021
• Law 4703/2020, which essentially abolishes the right to assemble and prohibits demonstrations.
• Presidential Decree 73/2020, which extends the restrictions and repressive powers of the police for demonstrations.
• Presidential Decree 75/2020 which generalizes the use of fixed and mobile cameras and drones by the police.
• Law 4777/2021, which, among other things, provides for the establishment of a university police, despite the financial contraction of the budget for the needs of both personnel and logistical equipment within the institutions of universities.
• The "law on terrorism" (article 187A of the Penal Code), which is reinforced over time by all governments to date targeting the popular labor movements
• Law 4662/2020, for upgrading the operation of Civil Protection as a National Crisis Management Mechanism, with responsibilities for the imposition of repressive measures, with the mobilization of the entire public sector.
April 2021
