Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), took part in the rally in Athens and made the following statement:
“Workers are people, not machines. In the 21st century, the era of artificial intelligence and great scientific progress, reducing working hours is a realistic goal. Yet instead, the government is introducing a monstrosity, bringing in 13-hour working days. This must be withdrawn immediately!
What we need today is a seven-hour, five-day working week; decent wages; collective labour agreements; and health and safety measures. These are the demands of workers and unions, as evidenced by their mobilizations across Greece. We support these demands too, because they form part of the KKE’s political proposal for power.”
Protest at the 89th Thessaloniki International Fair
Meanwhile, Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis was speaking at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF), reaffirming his commitment to the EU’s anti-popular directives, its budgetary discipline and the repayment of the national debt. He promised the working class ‘tax breaks’ and ‘benefits’, which offer only minimal compensation for the heavy and unfair direct and indirect taxes imposed on the them. The prime minister also announced benefits and ‘reforms’ for business groups, particularly those preparing to get their hands on the funds of the war economy and armaments. For the people, all this portends a worsening of their situation.
Workers, farmers, the self-employed, young people and women responded decisively to the government’s anti-popular policy by highlighting the militant struggle against policies that sacrifice the people’s lives and setting the tone for a decisive escalation. The trade unions are preparing to organize a strike by the end of September, against modern-day slavery, i.e. the monstrosity of 13-hour working day introduced by the government.
With the goal set at the meeting held by the trade unions on 26 August to be the largest mobilization at the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair in recent years, this was achieved.
Slogans such as “Sectoral labour contracts, wage increases: this is the workers' response”, “7-hour, 5-day working week: wage increases, against the profits of the bosses” and “The 13-hour working day will not be implemented; it will be overturned through the workers’ organization and struggle” could be heard echoing through the streets of the city.
The workers and their unions demanded that the government withdraw the anti-worker monstrosity of the 13-hour working day and conveyed their demands for stable jobs with rights, a 7-hour, 5-day working week for all, increases in wages and pensions, etc.
There was a massive turnout of small and self-employed craftsmen and tradesmen, who are being crushed as it is difficult to compete with large companies.
They were joined by farmers and livestock breeders, who are preparing a new round of protests over the acute and worsening problems they face.
University students, who are affected by severe problems due to underfunding and commercialization, also militantly participated in the demonstration, demanding modern and free education.
They were joined by students, who demand that schools that educate rather than exhaust them, with modern infrastructure and no shortage of teachers, etc.
Dimitris Koutsoumbas, GS of the CC of the KKE, participated in the trade union rally in Thessaloniki. In a statement to the media, he said:
“We reject the government’s mockery and anti-popular measures. We reject false promises, messiahs and the various other opposition parties within the system.
We have confidence only in the people’s inexhaustible forces and in our struggle to overturn the entire anti-popular policy, this decayed state, and their corrupt system.
We respond to the government’s long-term anti-popular measures, the most recent of which is the 13-hour workday for modern-day slaves. We respond with an intensification of the class struggle, with a long-term class struggle, with an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly alliance led by PAME and the KKE.”
