In Greece on 11 March, hundreds of thousands of workers responded to Parliament’s passage of austerity measures with a 24-hour general strike – the third in a month – bringing airports and public transportation to a standstill.
The strike was called by the main unions, the GSEE and the public-sector ADEDY, which together represent half of Greece’s five million wage-workers.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, tens of thousands protested in union-organized demos.
In Athens as Parliament passed the austerity package on 5 March, employees of the National Printing House occupied and shut down the government presses in an attempt to block the measures from becoming law. (In order to become law, they must be formally published. The government ignored this law, of course.)
ADEDY has called for another general strike on 16 March.
The strike was called by the main unions, the GSEE and the public-sector ADEDY, which together represent half of Greece’s five million wage-workers.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, tens of thousands protested in union-organized demos.
In Athens as Parliament passed the austerity package on 5 March, employees of the National Printing House occupied and shut down the government presses in an attempt to block the measures from becoming law. (In order to become law, they must be formally published. The government ignored this law, of course.)
ADEDY has called for another general strike on 16 March.
In 'crisis fallout' posted previously, you point out that 'No one is fond of the parties and unions, and only fools give them blind trust.'
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether Greek parties' voters have been fools, rather than strong suckers' generations of suburban families, new-class farmers, retired workers of the political transition period, meaning the frozen dead Mis(stres) Metapoliteusis. Meaning what? I cannot but not tell. But who voted for Monster Debt?
Anyhow, still nothing but surreal, it's shown in front that National Federation of the Blind supports general strike (Athens). How would the rest go about trusting blindly, and not feel as idiots? Absolutely no need to answer.
CNN reminds the Capitalist World: The Greek government has until March 16 to show the EU concrete measures it is taking. It has said it will not back down in the face of strikes.
We'll Not Wait and See . . .
Thanks for that, anonymous. I too hope that Greeks will Not Wait and See; that their actions will not only be effective but will also produce new (and more direct) ways of orgnanizing.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about the banner of the National Federation of Blind People in the photograph! Yes, blind trust has been exhausted in Greece. We are watching closely...
A letter from Korydallos prisons, Athens, by Marios Z., the protester beaten savagely by cops, arrested and currently remanded for his participation in the general strike march of 11 March 2010, threatened to remain imprisoned for up to 18 months pending his trial, according to the Greek legislation.
ReplyDeleteKorydallos’ Sector A
19 March 2010
On Thursday 11 of March, I was arrested by the police forces of repression. Any sense of freedom and the right to demonstrate was cancelled in a stroke with rage and violence by a fully-armed riot policeman, since he was the freedom to do so. The occasion of my arrest was participating in a demonstration to defend the rights of the working – or not – citizens, having a weird haircut and a backpack. The real reason was to set an example.
During the military junta, they used to tear with whips the faces of the young students in and out of the Law School. In our days, with the same barbarity, the ‘socialist’ government, using all means at its disposal tears and stigmatizes the lives of toiling people, those that suffer and those that resist and are not afraid to merely exist, with the violence of economic and terroristic policies.
The political responsibility of my irrational arrest must be claimed by the State. The massive political reaction expressed through this wave of protests, proves that society resists. And this is even more important for me, since I have consciously selected to remain unintegrated [i.e. not belonging to a party etc]. The State demands our inexistence and has a dread of our existence.
It isn't just my remand case, but all the well-known cases of police perjury and frame-ups, that bring out and prove the State’s attempt to terrorize and intimidate whoever stands by his/her rights, to discourage any others that dare to support them, setting up docile societies that won't protest nor assert their rights.
I am thankful to all those fighting for my release either from the very beginning, or joining in during the fight, from a sincere concern, away from any political and party interests, either by means I agree with or not, since I don't think what is sensible to do now is to discuss the various ways to manifest our solidarity, but to sit the State itself in judgment for its practices.
Freedom to all prisoners, to all fighters for the liberation of all prisoners and of the spirit. A slogan from the GADA (Athenian Police Headquarters) prisons, written on the yellow walls, next to prisoners forgotten for days and nights in awful conditions:
‘Golden cage or humid cage makes little difference to the bird.’
Marios Z.
PS. ‘Of all the things which wisdom provides for the all-round happiness of life, by far the greatest is the possession of friends’ — Epicurus
(freemariosz.wordpress.com
libcom.org/news/letter-imprisoned-general-strike-demonstrator-greece-marios-z-19032010)
that's very very sad, however not surprising. if there's any solidarity action for Marios - other than the petition - please keep us posted.
ReplyDelete