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Millions of Workers Striking in Greece

Against Wage-Labour

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:04:00

At various points during the last two months, millions of workers from many industries have shut down numerous services in Greece.

The two major unions, the General Confederation of Greek Workers and the Civil Servants’ Union, representing more than 2.5 million workers are leading the strike in conjunction with other unions.

The conservative government in Greece wants to revamp Greece’s many pension funds by merging them into a small handful in order to save on administrative costs. This will result in loss of benefits, an increase in retirement age, and losses for working mothers, that is, an overall significant loss of benefits for all workers.

The strike has resulted in complete chaos as garbage collectors, doctors, pharmacists, bank employees, engineers, journalists, lawyers, municipal employees, electrical workers, air traffic controllers and other transport workers have all participated at certain points in the massive work stoppage. At one point even the stock exchange was closed as the bank employees refused to perform bank transactions. During the strike, trash was thrown at the riot police by garbage collectors expressing their complete frustration at the dire situation. However, the government remained firm in its stance.

March 19^th, 2008 is the date set for an overall general strike in the country. The importance of this strike is exemplified in not only how much the society depends on the functioning of the services, i.e. the work of the rank and file, but rather more significantly on the solidarity between the various worker organizations and their wisdom to understand that they are not just fighting for their individual situations but that of their comrades in other sectors as well as the next generation of workers.

The demands for decent pensions is a demand for the minimal – that workers have adequate resources upon which to live decently, and that they at the end of many years of serving their employers they are paid back what is owed to them. To tear apart the benefits of pension plans is to mess with the futures of the workers, their children and grandchildren and would ultimately result in many elderly people living out the rest of their life in poverty.

These millions of workers recognize the severity of this and so their legacy of struggle is not to retreat, rather it is to forge ahead and win economic and social gains – the forces of the millions of workers are not to be reckoned with.

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