From Unity, 27 February 2010

Not Ireland

Last week saw hundreds of thousands of Greek workers take to the streets to reject the austerity package being foisted on them by their government. Following weeks of protest action by farmers demanding higher government subsidies, Wednesday saw a virtual general strike grip the country.
     In response to the call from the civil servants’ union ADEDY, over a quarter of a million public-sector workers joined the 24-hour stoppage.
     The president of the civil service union, Spyros Papaspyros, made clear the objective. “We are aware of the difficult economic situation, but targeting the incomes of employees and pensioners is just the easy way out . . . We won’t let the government make the usual suspects pay for the crisis.” He emphasised that the protest had been called “to defend our dignity, to put an end to our sacrifices on the altar of financial markets.”
     The following day it was the turn of the self-employed to follow the example of the workers and farmers. Cab drivers used strike action to show their anger against the government. The austerity measures will also ramp up fuel taxes and target the self-employed for tax collection.
     Under pressure from the EU and international finance, the Greek government has slashed public spending by €2 billion. Civil servants have been told that they face salary cuts of between 5 and 20 per cent, and the average retirement age has been raised. National statistics released last week also showed a five-year record of 10.6 per cent.
     “This is a war against workers, and we will answer with war and with constant struggle until this policy is overturned," one union leader told a rally in Athens. The Greek unions have announced that further protests will take place in two weeks’ time.
     “We are not Ireland” was one of the slogans chanted by the Greek demonstrators, making it clear that they know only too well at whose bidding their government is acting: the Brussels bureaucrats and their free-market economics. The Greeks are determined not to be bullied and manipulated by the EU in the way the Irish people were over the Lisbon Treaty.
     Last week also saw the launch of a “Vote no” campaign in Iceland, ahead of a national referendum on their government’s agreement to repay £3.65 billion to Britain and the Netherlands. The grass-roots organisation In Defence, whose original petition prompted Iceland’s president to veto the Icesave Bill and put the legislation to voters, accused the British and Dutch governments of being “engaged in economic warfare against Iceland.”
     In Defence does not object to the repayments but to the tough terms imposed by London and Amsterdam. The group objects to the extended time limit of the repayment guarantee, the removal of Iceland’s right to challenge the payment under international law, and the estimated £40,000 per family it will cost. Opinion polls indicate that Icelanders will vote against the bill on 6 March.
     If we are to defend ourselves here in Ireland as the class war is intensified in the coming period, we need to learn all the lessons we can from the resistance in other countries.

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