Greece: Fake left lines up behind trade union sabotage of anti-austerity struggle

[Antid Oto]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Greece: Fake left lines up behind trade union sabotage of
anti-austerity struggle
By Robert Stevens and Marcus Salzmann
18 March 2010

The mass movement of Greek workers against the €16 billion
government-imposed austerity package is being run into the ground by
the trade unions. The two major union federations, the General
Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and the public sector
confederation (ADEDY), are stifling opposition to the
social-democratic PASOK government in order to pave the way for their
inevitable declaration of support for cuts—provided only that they are
administered “fairly.”

On Tuesday, what should have been a day of industrial action by all
public sector workers was instead the occasion for a number of
isolated strikes and protests. ADEDY has only called an unspecified
“protest rally” for the evening of March 23 and has said that a date
for industrial action to be held “either before or after Easter” will
not be fixed until later this month.

As the protests have mounted and the austerity measures begin to be
imposed, the GSEE has advanced a nationalist consumer protest campaign
as opposed to industrial action. The GSEE, which is presently holding
its congress, is focusing its energies on a “buy Greek” campaign.

Tuesday and Wednesday were the occasion for a 48-hour action by power
workers employed by the state-owned DEH. However, the GENOP trade
union limited this to taking some units offline for a short time at
seven plants, with union president Nikos Photopoulos stressing that
“we don’t want a single light bulb to go out.” Speaking to a World
Socialist Web Site reporter, an official of GENOP said that after
meeting with the energy minister they will decide whether to continue
the strike or to end it.

Everything is being done to lull Greek workers into a false sense of
complacency. On Monday, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s
(S&P) slightly upgraded Greece’s status to BBB-plus, while Tuesday saw
the European Union foreign ministers pledge support to PASOK’s
austerity measures and issue a declaration that they have devised an
emergency aid package in case Greece requests financial assistance.

In reality, there is nothing comforting or positive in either
announcement. In the first place, both are meant as an endorsement of
Prime Minister George Papandreou’s attacks on jobs, wages and social
services. Moreover, both are highly conditional. S&P still warns that
the Greek economy faces “much weaker medium-term growth than official
forecasts,” a sign that the financial powers are still not satisfied
with the scale of attacks made on working people.

Commenting on S&P’s verdict, Gary Jenkins, credit analyst at Evolution
Securities, described it to the Guardian as “probably the most
negative positive comment that I have ever read.” Jenkins added, “It
reads like they [S&P] do not want to be part of potentially creating
any problem, but they want to say enough negative comments so that if
it does all go horribly wrong in the future, they can point to said
commentary and say ‘we did warn you!’ ”

European finance ministers in fact failed to agree on any concrete
measures to aid Greece and have stressed instead that the government
has not asked for any money. Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado
told the press, “Greece for the moment does not need any help. They
haven’t asked for any financial help, so what we did yesterday is
simply to discuss on the technical issues, to have some instrument
ready if it is needed.”

The Irish Times headlined its report, “Brussels offers Greece the rack
as alternative to its bed of nails.”

Under these circumstances, the austerity measures being carried out by
Papandreou can only be the first wave of an ongoing programme of cuts.
This year, he plans to reduce the budget deficit from 12.7 percent of
gross domestic product to 8.7 percent. The government must impose tens
of billions in further cuts in the next two years in order to reduce
the deficit to 3 percent by 2012.

There will be no let-up in the demands for more pain now being made to
the working class. Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein, a
former advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, said on Saturday that
failure to implement the measures could result in Greece having to
exit the euro zone. Feldstein said, “The idea that Greece can go from
a 12 percent deficit now to a 3 percent deficit two years from now
seems fantasy. The alternatives are to default in some way or to
leave, or both.”

Commenting in the Financial Times on the precarious state of the Greek
economy, Richard Batty, investment director of strategy at Standard
Life Investments, asked, “Are the Greeks able to achieve the fiscal
adjustments necessary? That is still very unclear, particularly as the
economy is likely to see a much bigger contraction than is forecast
and the country has to pay elevated interest rates in the market.”

A decisive political role in facilitating PASOK’s attacks is being
played by the pseudo-left groups—SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical
Left), Antarsya (Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow)
and the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE)—which have acted
throughout as loyal cheerleaders for the trade union bureaucracy,
hailing its one-day strikes as proof that the unions defend the
interests of the workers.

SYRIZA’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, spoke in the European Parliament this
month, warning that “the last two Greek governments’ neoliberal
policies…can lead us to a social catastrophe!”

He advised that a more long-term model for the imposition of cuts was
required, stating, “It is nonsense to reduce the deficit in such a
short time. We have to give a Left alternative with medium-term
changes that are not based in reducing the salaries by 20 percent,
with indirect taxes rises, and the reduction of the social system
provoking terrible consequences to the social peace of Greece.”

On Monday, SYRIZA appealed for unity among “all the forces of the
Left, radical environmentalism and PASOK supporters that disagree with
the policies of the party and the government”—a measure designed to
legitimise its refusal to mount any struggle against PASOK in the name
of a supposed “unity of the Left.”

The various ex-left groups organised within Antarsya act as a second
line of defence for the government, by posing as a left alternative to
SYRIZA while insisting that the most important task is to build the
type of “left” alliances being advocated. This places them in a direct
line of continuity with PASOK.

Just as fundamentally, both groups are firmly tied to the trade union
apparatus and are busy providing excuses for its efforts to call off
opposition to the government.

A rally Tuesday night in Athens was supposedly ADEDY’s major activity
of the day. But the gathering was attended almost exclusively by the
members and periphery of SYRIZA, Antarsya and the KKE’s youth movement.

A member of the Socialist Workers Party of Greece (SEK), which is
affiliated to Antarsya, told a WSWS reporter that the demonstration
was being held to demand that the trade unions call further strikes.
But when pressed as to why none had been called, he stressed that
ADEDY was not taking action this week because it had held a strike
last week. Regarding the GSEE, he added that it had not called any
action since March 11 because “they are in a congress this week.”

In an interview with the Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the
British Socialist Workers Party, Panos Garganas, the editor of
Workers’ Solidarity, its Greek newspaper, stated blandly that the
Greek trade union federation “has its conference next week so there
may not be more action from it soon.”

He made out that what was happening was a “waiting game.” The
government, he claimed, was “waiting to hear whether the European
Union is going to loan money to Greece” and workers are “waiting for
the trade union leaders to make up their mind.”

The trade union leaders have made up their minds a long time ago. By
encouraging such a passive acceptance of their right to lead, the
entire fake-left is disarming the working class and paving the way to
defeat.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/gre1-m18.shtml

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********