SYRIZA-ANEL Government of Greece continue preparations for a new “rescue plan” which is still in favour of corporate capital. Iannis Tassioulas, Member of the Executive Secretariat of PAME of All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) and President of Federation of Construction Workers and Allied Trades of Greece, answered soL News’ questions.
Tassioulas pointed out that anti-people government has passed about 600 laws all of which were completely at the expense of workers highlighting that every single one of them resulted in the further impoverishment of the workers and seizure of their houses by banks. Tassioulas explained that so-called “rescue-plan” which is supposed to be new, brings forth nothing but yet again further deductions from retirement salaries and cuts from what remained and scarce social security and health benefits as well as further privatization and plunder.
There is a new bailout plan on agenda of the Greek government. According to the international press, it is planned to sell some of the state’s assets until August. As mentioned, in total, the bailout plan includes 19 privatizations covering 10 ports, real estate assets, the Hellenic Post and the Athens water supply. Could you give some brief information about the new bailout plan? Could you also evaluate results of the previous bailout plans?
The SYRIZA -ANEL government announces the end of the memorandum in August 2018 and promises the beginning of a "fair development", the return to "normality" and the relief of the workers who have experienced through the period of the capitalist crisis the shrinking of their rights, the loss of their achievements and of the worsening of their life.
This is a new effort to entrap the workers, the popular strata in illusions and false expectations that the government has a "rescue" plan as a way out of the problems experienced by people.
The government's plan is nothing but a plan that serves the interests of the capital, which does not lose the opportunity to congratulate the government, to encourage the government towards more decisive interventions in this direction.
The governmental plan has nothing to do with the interests of the working class, of the poor people, nor does it resolve the aggravated problems of the people.
The formal completion of the memorandum signed by the current and previous governments, with the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank, does not mark the improvement of the workers' lives. The over 600 anti-workers laws imposed during the crisis, crashing the wages, the pensions, the social benefits, the working relations and rights, imposing extreme taxes on popular income, leading to auctions of the workers' houses by the banks, will remain in full force. New anti-people plans will be added to these laws.
New measures from 1/1/2019 for new cuts in pensions, and anti-workers interventions in what still remains in the social security system, social benefits, welfare and health benefits and hospitals. The policy of privatization of the ports and energy will continue, ensuring new profit margins for the businessmen, with cheap workers and more expensive services for the people.
The government's claim for a "fair development" that will supposedly alleviate the workers is completely fake.
Fair development cannot exist in an unfair system. The attack of the capital, the government and its forces will continue. That is why the government and the capital are taking repression measures against the people.
Earlier this year, they passed a law on limiting strike rights in workplaces. They passed another law on a direct prosecution of those who struggle and "obstruct" the auctions of people’s houses. The last months, the court sentences against trade unionists and strikers who struggle to raise wages in workplaces have increased. The employers have been strengthening the intimidation through layoffs of militant workers.
All this is the living proof that the workers must not expect a "rescue" by those who are responsible for the barbarity they live in.
Could you give information about PAME’s action plan to struggle against the bailout plan of the government?
PAME and the trade unions in the sectors and regions of Greece that rally in it, have amplified our efforts to uncover the character of the government’s policy, the illusions that are being cultivated in order to integrate the workers and the popular strata into the line of the capital.
Drawing conclusions from the recent experience, we remind the workers that the SYRIZA-ANEL government has proven in practice that it is fully promoting the policy of the capital, continuing the anti-people work of the previous governments. SYRIZA may have won the governmental power by promising to "crush" the memorandums, to abolish the anti-workers laws. But in practice, together with its governmental far-right colleagues, ANEL, and the other bourgeois parties, not only did not overturn the memoranda and the anti-workers laws, but they signed a new memorandum and to the old anti-workers laws, they added hundreds of new ones. One of the more characteristic laws, is the law of the SYRIZA-ANEL government, also known as the “law-guillotine” of Katrougkalos (the former Minister of Employment), which imposed huge reductions (30% -40% -50%) on pensions.
Beyond the struggle about the argumentation, we also organize the struggle, putting the workers' needs in the forefront, and responding to the plans of the government and the big business.
A successful national strike has already taken place at the beginning of the year with PAME's initiative against the attack to the right in the strike.
This strike took place in spite of the attack and the denial of the trade unionism controlled by the government and the employers in the higher-level trade unions, who are constantly supporting the anti-workers policy and promote as an one-way street for the workers, a struggle line that has been agreed with the Association of Industrialists and leads the workers to subjugation and consensus with the demands of the big business.
In the trade unions, where the leadership is in the hands of the class forces (eg construction, food-drinks), national sectoral strikes have been carried out with the aim of signing sectoral contracts and increases in wages and salaries. This struggle is in progress. Up until now, construction workers in the two largest construction sites in Athens have gained significant increases (5% to 15%), creating solid conditions for the signing of wage increases at the national level.
In the planning of action, there are already decisions for a new strike of construction workers, who continue their activity by carrying out hundreds of interventions throughout Greece, in the workplaces with general assemblies, work stoppages, meetings in towns.
In addition, PAME gave with great success the fight of May Day strike. On 30th May, we held a new general national strike.
Despite the efforts of the trade unionism controlled by the government and employers to promote a content in the struggle that suits the government and the employers, the class forces rallied in PAME give the fight with a content that responds to the interests and needs of the workers. For wages, working rights, social security, for the situation in the healthcare, against the privatizations and auctions, the extreme taxation. We will not stop our struggle.
Faced with the attack of the capital and its forces, we counteract with our organized and unwavering class struggle.
This is our decision. On this road, we, the workers, will have victorious results and the greatest victories.
As we know, PAME is well organized in the ports. Do you have members in the ports that are planned to be privatized? What kind of reactions do you observe?
From the very beginning, PAME has opposed the plans to privatize the ports and the consequences that will follow in both the rights of the workers and the burdens that will fall on the people with more expensive ports due to the constant hunting of businesses for higher profits.
They fought the various privatization variants promoted by the previous and current governments. They counter the misleading argument of maintaining state control, partly privatizing sections and services in ports, and other sectors of the economy that accompany privatization projects.
An ally in the privatization plans is the unionism controlled by the government and the employers that “acquits” government policy. In spite of any reaction, mainly to contain workers dissatisfaction and to appear in their eyes with some controlled struggle, in practice it accepts privatizations as long as some workers’ rights are ensured. It bears great responsibilities because it has been cultivating complacency for years, for instance, it presents partial privatization not as privatization but as a necessary structural path that guarantees the presence of businesses in public organizations, the terms and conditions of better economic functioning.
PAME with its forces in the ports will continue the struggle and the information of the workers and the people, highlighting the demands of the workers that meet their needs and the needs of the people as a whole.
We will strengthen the struggle and the highlighting of the perspective that shows that ports, energy, airports, mineral wealth can really serve workers only within the framework of the organization of society, in order to meet modern needs and the working class in power.
We have learned that two groups from Turkey are interested in these privatizations, especially of the ports. One of them is the affiliate of the Koç Holding which is the biggest capital group in Turkey. The other is the Doguş Holding that is the pro-AKP group. What could you say about this greed?
The capital, monopoly groups, capitalists have no homeland. They are constantly looking for new markets and fields for their profitability. They cannot quench their insatiable thirst for profits because this is what their “character” and their class nature imply. They are able to look for profits not only in neighbouring countries but also at the edge of the world.
In this hunt, they are capable of everything. They ally with their competitors. They create multinational groups, all of which hit workers’ rights, rob the people, reach agreements with the help of their governments and are at the same time able to carry out the biggest crimes in order to serve their plans.
People do not gain anything when capitalists reach agreements and expand their activities, or when war threats are heard as is the case now.
In capitalism either in peace or in war, the peoples are those that lose. Monopolies, the capital, despite contradictions between themselves, often leading to warfare between countries, finally, find the way to do their job. It’s our duty to put our own interests at the centre of the struggle.
All the investments made in Turkey, in Greece and around the world are done by capitalists to serve their own interests.
We will make our own plans which will serve our own interests, the present and the future of our children.
