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Newswire from Greece III
Greek workers walk out to protest ban on teachers' strike
By Renee Maltezou and Harry Papachristou
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek public sector workers walked off the job on Tuesday to protest against a government decision to ban a strike by high-school teachers, shutting down several schools and reducing staff at hospitals to a minimum.
But turnout at a planned rally and march to parliament was poor, hit by rain and a growing sense of resignation among Greeks inured to frequent strikes against austerity measures.
Invoking emergency legislation, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has threatened teachers with arrest and dismissal if they go ahead with a planned walkout on Friday that would disrupt university entrance exams, as he tries to show Greece's foreign lenders that Athens is sticking to unpopular reforms.
The action on Tuesday was the latest in a string of anti-austerity strikes since 2010, when Greece adopted severe budget and wage cut measures as part of its international bailout.
Update from the struggle of the teachers:
It's very difficult to describe what the situation is like the past few hours.
Since yesterday we knew that the vast majority of the ELMEs had voted for the strike, despite them being mobilised by the government, while PAME proposed to make a 48h strike at first, and then proceed to the 5-day strike, if there is a movement behind.
However, today the chairmen of the ELMEs, at their arranged meeting, decided NOT to strike. The ones that took that decision belonged to DAKE (ND), PASKE (PASOK) and "Autonomi Paremvasi" (SYN).
From what I know until now, OLME (the teachers' union) has asked from the public servants union, ADEDY, to participate in the strike, only to meet their refusal.
It must be also noted that PASKE and DAKE, when it comes to their leadership, they are compeletely corrupt.
As far as I know, SYRIZA syndicalists esteemed that only with a strike of the public sector, would the strike survive. With the refusal of ADEDY, the only one who would actually support the strike would be SYRIZA (since PAME disagreed with it, while PASKE and DAKE would betray the teachers that supported it).
Finally, I think that if SYRIZA were to support the strike at this point, only the most radical of the teachers would strike, and with the mobilization orders issued, that would mean their dismissal.
If there are some opinions on this, please express them, or ask me if you didn't understand something.
As an update, I will post DEA's opinion on the issue, as it seems that all the syndicate factions made at least one mistake, and it's the only one I've read so far (except for the anarchists') that tries to make a critique on them.
Please, bear with my translation and any grammar mistakes:
1. The three-party government destroys public education. However, they have to face the majority of the workers and the society. To face the militant answer of the teachers, they have resorted to the civil mobilization, reaching the limits of political diversion. They know that their policies can only be applied in a anti-democratic way. This policy is felonious, concerns the whole society, and that's why it must be overthrown.
2. We salute the mobilization of the thousand teachers, who despite the civil mobilization, have participated massively in the general meetings of their primary unions (ELME) and with decisions of the overwhelming majority, supported the proposal for a lasting strike, crushing in practice the terrorism that the government attempted to impose. Their mobilization has exceeded any expectation and it forms the base for the continuation of the struggle.
3. In front of the critical question about the development of the strike -how can the civil mobilization be crushed- a central role was played by:
a) The syndicate solidarity. GSEE, ADEDY and the federations of the public sector, owed to proclaim a strike on May 17th, the first day of the teachers' strike. They didn't do so, though, retreating from the defence of the labor movement from the anti-democratic Government attack. The decision for a strike on Tuesday, May 14th, didn't defend this duty; it was just the alleby of the ADEDY syndicalist bureaucracy.
b) The political cover of the Left. The leaderships of the Left (SYRIZA-KKE) ought, clearly and from the beginning of this fight, to provide full political support to the struggle, while at the same time, to call the people to support the teachers. Instead of this, while SYRIZA's forces among the teachers supported the strike, centrally SYRIZA denied to take on the political responsibility of the full rapture. KKE has avoided the struggle as a whole by retreating in front of the social automation. ANTARSYA's forces have supported this fight, but on the critical point of the decision of either the suspension or the continuation of the strike against the civil mobilisation, they have had, and still do, an irresponsible attitude. On the one hand, by sharing the notion that OLME cannot break the civil mobilization, they didn't suggest the continuation of the strike (the suggestion of the syndicalist faction supported by ANTARSYA in OLME, for "500 syndicalists" that would keep on striking, is only symbolic and it evades the issue). On the other hand, they try to load the burden of the responsibility on the other factions of the Left, with the cost of creating the impression that everything is over and that the war is lost.
4. This strike has managed to mobilize thousands of teachers, to open the issue of education to society, to press the government politically. The war for the defence of the public school continues. The government stands in front of the massive majority of the teachers and the solidarity of the society. The need for the struggle against the dismissals, stays on. To construct a wide social front for defence of the public education and health. We keep on, extracting the necessary political deductions. The next fight is near.
Construction workers and workers at the shipyards of Perama(two industries that have been heavily hited by the crisis and the unemployntment is enormous) demonstrated outside of the Labor Ministry asking for:
-Free medical and hospital care for all without terms and conditions
- Extraordinary "remedy" for all builders
- Reducing conditions for unemployment benefits for the duration of their unemployment
- Reduction of retirement age
- Remove the increase by two years the retirement age of builders
- Free transport to public transport with the card is unemployment
- Exemption from any hike, municipal fees and taxes
- To cover all applications in crèches and kindergartens and admitted all children, Greeks and immigrants, without terms and conditions and to abolish alimony.
The minister refused to meet them. Both syndicates are coiled in PAME.
Video and pictures here.
Workers at the super market "Extra", in Lavrio, Attika, are striking for 19 days now, asking for a dismissal to be withdrawn.
Tommorow they are having a demo in the town.
http://redflyplanet.blogspot.com/201...48710068939327
People's Commitee, the KKE's front on the neibourhoods, after a demonstration in the Tax Office of Pereus, stopped the confiscasion of an unemployed metalworker's house for his tax debts, of 4.000 euros.
Tomorrow, the PC has arranged to meet the local president of the Power Company(DEH) to demand the reconnect of the worker's power, since he lives without electricity for the last 7 months.
Photos can be found here.
http://www.902.gr/eidisi/ergatiki-ta...ti-meta-apo#/0
3 PAME members are facing court for militant action in Zakinthos island at Friday.
http://www.902.gr/eidisi/ergatiki-ta...CTS8A.facebook
Α. Dimitris Koutsoumpas gave a speech at Nikea, a well known working class neibougrhood of Athens.
B. In the island of Zakinthos, the local Party Base Organisation of KKE shared a leaflet against the canceling of Sunday's day off.
C. Unions and syndicates of Eastern Attica organised a demonstration against the closure of hospitals in the area for the 23th of July.
A. Dimitris Koutsoumpas met with the syndicate of the workers on public television, ERT, which has been shut down by the government for 2 weeks now.
B.Tommorow starts the anti-imperialist 2 days camp of KNE at Souda, Crete, where the biggest NATO base on Greece locates.
C. The People's Commitee of Menidi(poor neibourhood of Athens with a big gypsy camp) organised a solidarity demo for the workers of the closed bread company "Katselis". The company closed, even though it was ver profitable and one of the monopolies in Greece, because its owner wanted to gather capital to invest in banking business.
There will be a solidarity hip hop concert/film show/presentation/discussion on the growth of nazism in Oslo next Tuesday arranged by Motmakt, a Norwegian "council socialist" organisation.Antifa hiphop live in Friday.
"What is necessary is to go beyond any false opposition of programme versus spontaneity. Communism is both the self-activity of the proletariat and the rigorous theoretical critique that expresses and anticipates it."
-----
"...Stalinism is eternally condemned to govern capital, and the ideological dynamics of Stalinism are tied to this peculiar type of capital management; it is locked within this framework, reproducing the logic of capitalism under the veil of communism. For this reason, Stalinism, and its various derivatives, cannot accurately be regarded as communist if we choose to define it in materialist terms." - Tim Cornelis
uh... yeah. woops. It will be held in Oslo, but the topic is the growth of nazism in Greece.
"What is necessary is to go beyond any false opposition of programme versus spontaneity. Communism is both the self-activity of the proletariat and the rigorous theoretical critique that expresses and anticipates it."
-----
"...Stalinism is eternally condemned to govern capital, and the ideological dynamics of Stalinism are tied to this peculiar type of capital management; it is locked within this framework, reproducing the logic of capitalism under the veil of communism. For this reason, Stalinism, and its various derivatives, cannot accurately be regarded as communist if we choose to define it in materialist terms." - Tim Cornelis
A. The workers of Katselis bread corp. demonstrated in front of the Labour Ministry demanding that their factory will not close. PAME was on their side.
B. A PAME syndicalist is being sued by the major of Peristeri(an area in Athens) for its syndicalist actions.
C. PAME syndicates on the shiping demonstrated on the port of Pereus demanding from the NEL company(one of the country's shipping monopolies) the gambling debts to the ship workers.
The video from the KNE antiimperialist demonstration against the NATO base in Souda,Crete.
+ YouTube Video
I wonder what the american tourists would think when they saw the Chania port being surrounded by communists!
A. The KNE Base Organisation of A' Athens organises, within the framework of the campaign of KKE on unemployntment and low paid labor, a tour on some working places, to talk with the working youth there. These are: EVGA milk factory,at the cafeterias on Fokionos Negri str.(where many "trendy" cafeterias are), at many OAED(the state office for the unemployed), Hondos Center mall, and at the mall of Victoria square.
B. KKE's members of Ikaria island municipality are being brought to court because they refused to obey the government's decision to privatise 4 beaches.
C. The People's Commitee of Toumpa(an area in Thesaloniki) holds a assembly today to organise the struggle against the austerity.
D. A big antifascist concert is being organised by PAME unions in Kalamata at the 14th of July.
A. PAME made a solidarity demo outside of the factory of "FIMI PAK" where the workers are on strike demanding their gambling debts. PAME also gave 1 ton foods in solidarity to the workers.
B. The teachers syndicate are having a demonstration outside of the Education Ministry as we speak.
C. Hotel employees are having a strike in Corfu today, reacting to the hard working conditions.
D. 54 students councils in colleges and universities that are coiled to MAS(KKE's front in universities and colleges) signed a petition against the Golden Dawn festival at the 4th of August(day that the Metaxas fascist dictatorship couped in 1936) in Kalamata.
Fuckin cops attacked a solidarity demo to the anarchist hunger striker Kostas Sakkas in Acropolis.
+ YouTube Video
Can you give us a translation as to what they are chanting please?The video from the KNE antiimperialist demonstration against the NATO base in Souda,Crete.
+ YouTube Video
I wonder what the american tourists would think when they saw the Chania port being surrounded by communists!
Kostas Sakkas to be released!
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Follow updates on Kostas’ struggle via our tag.
Kostas Sakkas is an anarchist who was arrested in December 2010, one of the earliest in a wave of arrests targeting the “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire”. Both Sakkas and the CCF refuse he was ever a member, and Sakkas has separately taken the responsibility for his political activity as an anarchist. Held since, Sakkas’ initial pre-trial detention maximum expired eighteen months later, in the summer of 2012 -yet it was extended by another year, to June this year (ie. last month). At that time, a court of appeals in Athens ordered the extension of Sakkas’ detention by another six months, now solidly stepping outside the boundaries that the legal apparatus had set for its own self. On June 4, Kostas Sakkas went on a hunger strike.
Updates:
July 11
- Kostas Sakkas to be released!
- Anarchists occupy the town hall of Heraklion, Crete in solidarity with Kostas Sakkas
July 10
- Video: police attacks peaceful solidarity demo to Kostas Sakkas underneath the Acropolis
- Solidarity demo to Kostas Sakkas attacked by squads of the DELTA motorcycle police at the Acropolis
July 9
July 8
- Thessaloniki: anarchists occupy the theatre school in solidarity with K. Sakkas
- Heraklion, Crete: anarchists occupy the offices of Greek tourism organization and the local department of tourism ministry in solidarity with K. Sakkas
- Düşler Tutsak Edilemez (you can’t imprison dreams): solidarity to Kostas Sakkas from Turkey
July 7
- They have names and faces: the name of the prosecutor who suggested that Sakkas continues to be detained is Ioannis Moraitakis
- Solidarity gathering for Kostas Sakkas, July 8 outside the Athens court of appeals in anticipation of the decision for his release
- Video about the case of Sakkas
July 5
- More than 1,000 join motorcycle and hospital demonstration in solidarity with Kostas Sakkas, as he reaches his 32nd day on hunger strike
- Medical report on Kostas Sakkas, July 4, 2013
July 4
Older
- Democracy facts
- Athens: more than 6,000 march in solidarity with Kostas Sakkas
- Solidarity to the Anarchist hunger striker Kostas Sakkas
- “Accused of anarchy and terrorism”
- Anarchist Kostas Sakkas on hunger strike since June 4
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Kostas Sakkas to be released
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Minutes ago, the court of appeals decided the release of Kostas Sakkas on a 30,000 euro bail.
UPDATE, 12.15 The bail conditions are as follows:
- Kostas is forbidden to exit the country.
- Once a week, he will have to sign off at his local police station.
- He must reside at his registered address.
- He is forbidden to travel outside the Attica prefecture (Greater Athens).
- He is not allowed to be in contact with any of the fellow accused for the CCF case.
- He must pay a 30.000 euro bail.
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Anarchists occupy the town hall of Heraklion, Crete in solidarity with Kostas Sakkas
Thursday, July 11, 2013
In the early hours of July 11th, anarchists occupied the town hall of Heraklion, in Crete, using it as a counter-information point to inform about Sakkas’ case. The verdict on Sakkas’ release is expected later in the day.
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater?
Here at least We shall be free
Partija Rada (Party of Labour)
