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Statement: Support the Greek Workers!

7 May 2010

How would you feel if you were to wake in the morning and be told that you were facing a savage wage and pension cuts, cuts in benefits, your retirement date had been postponed for years, public services were being cut to the bone and beyond and massive tax increases were on the way. To top it off, workers in hazardous jobs are told that their jobs are being reclassified as safe to avoid paying a bonus!

That’s what’s happening in Greece.  A slightly milder version of the same medicine has been applied in Ireland and the big secret of the British general election is that similar attacks on wages, pensions and services are on the way for Britain and the North.  The chairman of the Bank of England has remarked that the new government will be so hated for its savage cuts that the governing party will then be out of power for a generation.

We are told that an inflated public sector is to blame, but the public sector is the scapegoat for the hundreds of billions pumped into the banks to bail them out.  The bank bailout is ongoing and openended. If the banks want more they get more. That means that attempts by the Irish trade union leadership to freeze pay by supporting a work speedup and cuts in services is doomed to fail. There is more to come. Greece is coming our way

The Greek workers are fighting to save themselves and their children from a generation of grinding poverty. They have taken to the streets and organised a general strike. By defending them, by offering solidarity, we are defending ourselves. 

Support the Greek workers! Oppose the sacrifice of wages and conditions at the altar of the international bond market.  Contact your trade union and ask them to send messages of solidarity. Demand that ICTU support the Greeks and follow their example. If you want to send you own message, link to the international solidarity movement or actively organise support, contact us at:

www.socialistdemocracy.org
 

 

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