1. How are ordinary people being
affected by the austerity measures?
At the moment Greece is a huge laboratory
of social engineering with a continuing escalation of of attacks on the working
class. Unemployment is officially at 22 per cent, but the real figure is likely
higher as people who have not had a job are not allowed to register as
unemployed or claim unemployment
benefit. Many industrial plants have closed, with private sector workers being
sacked. 20,000 people have already lost their jobs in the public sector and the
government is planning 150,000 further redundancies. Nearly 40 per cent of all
public sector employees will lose their jobs. Before austerity, there was easy
credit. Now people cannot pay back their loans, they can’t pay for their rent
or for their mortgages.
At schools across the country teachers
are seeing real poverty. Children are coming to school starving and fainting in
the class because their parents are unemployed, without unemployment benefit
and cannot afford bread and milk to feed them. There has been a 35 per cent cut
in salaries in the last three years for all public sector workers. Now, with
the Memorandum 2, the troika (EU-IMF-ECB)
with the Greek puppet government is cutting the Minimum Wage, from €700 a month
to €400 a month. Recently there have been reports of people committing suicide
because they cannot bear the effects of the crisis on their personal, political
and social lives.
However, in Greece there are also
some examples of workers’ control. Sacked journalists have taken over a
newspaper (Eleftherotypia), medical
doctors and nurses are organizsng health centres to provide free medical care
for the unemployed and homeless. We have food kitchens, feeding the rapidly
increasing numbers of homeless people. These acts of solidarity from below are
embryonic forms of workers’ self-management.
2. What is the situation like for
those working in universities in Greece?
Austerity
has hit Greek Universities in many ways. University budgets have been slashed
by more than 50 per cent, leading to serious problems. Funding for adjunct faculty has been reduced by almost 70 per cent
leading to hundreds of lay-offs. Several hundred elected faculty members have been
waiting, in some cases for two years, for their official
appointment. All these cuts have led to serious teaching personnel
shortages. Under the terms of the Loan Agreement, university lecturers’
salaries has been reduced by nearly 35 per cent and are going to be further
reduced, despite already being extremely low.
3. The process of neoliberalisation
of the higher education sector in Britain has been occurring - has the same
happened in Greece?
Institutional structures, management
and the funding of Greek universities have been under attack for the past two
years. This is another aspect of the devastation brought upon Greek society by
aggressive neoliberal policies. New laws have been passed in another attempt to
conform to the ‘Bologna Process’ requirements, which severely jeopardises
university autonomy by taking power from the Senates – (representative bodies
of university teachers, students and other employees) – towards ‘University
Councils’, consisting of university professors and representatives from the
business world. The law is full of references
for universities to look for funding in the business sector. In line with
recent reforms in most European countries the new law is tailored to the needs
of the current austerity packages imposed by the troika. It opens the door to a wave of department, and even university,
mergers and closures, in the name of ‘efficiency’, ‘performance’ and
‘viability’. higher education in Greece faces the danger of shrinkage: fewer
departments, students, and lecturers.
4. What is the relationship between
staff and students taking action in universities?
The law
regarding university funding was passed in Parliament with a two thirds
majority despite the opposition; by student unions, who staged a four week
strike and occupations; by local university teachers unions; by the majority of
University Senates and by the National University Rectors’ Congress. The
pro-government majority of our national university teachers union (POSDEP)
openly supported the law. Because of this the local university teachers unions
established a national coordination committee to organise opposition to the law
from below. This coordination committee effectively mobilised students and
university staff and so, for now, the new Law has not been implemented at the
universities. This is a partial, but very important, victory for the university
movement.
In
response to our victory the state authorities have put activists and
trade-unionists from our unions on trial for “disobedience” to a state law.
Solidarity actions have been organized
in order to support our colleagues. The support of students and other social
groups fighting against the austerity and the neoliberal policies is crucial. The Greek Ministry of Education has attempted to financially
blackmail universities into implementing the new law, making the full release
of 2012 funding conditional on universities establishing the new 'University
Councils'! Fortunately, Greek universities have a long tradition of struggle,
from both students and teaching personnel. That is why the new law has not been
successfully implemented. Struggle, solidarity and unity between teachers and
students are the only ways to answer the current attacks on Higher Education in
Greece.
5. We have heard a lot about the
many general strikes that have taken place in Greece over the last couple of
years. Can you describe what the atmosphere is like on the strikes and demos?
On
Sunday 12 February 2012 the people of Greece, in demonstrations all over the
country, expressed their resistance to the terms of the new loan agreement
dictated by the troika. Workers,
young people, and students filled the streets with rage, defying the extreme aggression
of the police force, and setting an example of struggle and solidarity. The government met the demonstrators with the same
force and fury that those in Tahrir Square faced one year ago. The police were
determined to expel thousands of demonstrators, who had been standing for hours
at Syntagma Square. The militancy and persistence
with which the workers and young people protested for hours was remarkable.
6. What do you see as the way
forward in Greece to winning the fight against austerity?
The left is facing a challenge of historical
proportions.Greece has a bright history of social resistance stretching back to
the 1970s. Following the youth revolt of December 2008 over the shooting of
Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the Greek workers’ movement has responded to the
government’s cuts packages with a wave of strikes and demonstrations. Anger is
growing and mass strikes and demonstrations are exemplary of the workers’
resistance.
We insist on the need for an escalation of struggles,
with general and sectoral strikes and mass rallies that will challenge the
attack by the government, the IMF and the EU, defend workers’ rights and demand
that capitalists, not workers pay for the crisis. We will keep on fighting with
all our forces. At the same time we in the anticapitalist left are proposing a
program of measures that can lift the economy out of the crisis on the basis of
giving priority to people’s needs rather than profits and imposing workers
control over the market.
7. What can we do in Britain to show
support and solidarity for Greek workers resisting austerity
Greek workers need the solidarity of socialists, trade
unionists, and anti-capitalists everywhere. Greece is simply the first European
country to have been targeted by the financial markets, but they have plenty of
others in their sights.The whole European social movement must stand next to
the Greek people! A victory for Greek workers will strengthen resistance to the
cuts elsewhere. I think that initiatives of organizations of the anti-capitalist
left in Europe expressing their solidarity with the Greek labour movement are
crucial. With confidence in the potential of collective struggle and workers’
militancy, we can defeat the forces of capital and open up the way for an anti-capitalist
alternative.
