Greek health workers and dockers strike against cuts and privatisation

Submitted by Matthew on 20 May, 2015 - 10:13 Author: Theodora Polenta

The trade union Poedhn, representing all workers in Greece’s public sector hospitals, has called a 24-hour strike for Wednesday 20 May, with a demonstration at 12.30 outside the Ministry of Health.

The hospital workers are demanding money to fund public and free healthcare, staff recruitment, and payment of accrued overtime for doctors and nurses.

The role of Syriza’s trade union fraction in the health sector is of pivotal importance. General meetings were called of all Syriza’s healthcare workers between 11 and 15 May and a decision was taken to build and support the strike. Every Syriza member is responsible for calling general assemblies and touring their workplaces to popularise the 20 May strike and help impose the saving and reclaiming of public health as a very rigid “red line” for the Syriza-Anel government.

The 20 February agreement between the Syriza-led government and the eurozone finance ministers, in which Syriza leaders promised full debt payments and no “unilateral” actions without eurozone approval, has created concern and confusion in the workplaces and a “waiting” stance.

Syriza’s rank and file and healthcare workers can break this passivity and bring the drawbacks of the February agreement out into the open.

They should be exposing the hypocrisy of the Pasok and New Democracy (ND) groups in the union, who organised no effective fight against the dismantling of the public health system during the previous Memorandum years, and now are opportunistically agitating about the tragic situation of public health and blaming all its ills on the Syriza government. The Pasok and ND factions which hold the majority in Poedhn hypocritically denounce the underfunding of public health, but accept the operation of public hospitals as businesses that sell services to patients.

The trade union leaders of Syriza and the revolutionary left should not become passive applauders of the government, but fight in order to hold the government accountable and “support” the government by demanding it deliver on its pre-election commitments. At the same the trade union leaders should be ready to defend the government if it carries through its promises and defies the blackmail from the EU, the ECB and the IMF.

Syriza’s local organisations can organise meetings or assemblies in every neighbourhood to contribute consistently in the same direction.

The Health Minister had promised 4,500 new recruits for the public health system, but made no commitment to increase government health spending for 2015. Hospitals are still in a terrible economic situation. State funding of public hospitals fell by 60% over the years of 2010-2014 and the budget for 2015 is €290 million less than for 2014.

Shortages of basic goods, pharmaceutical and medical supplies, are becoming unmanageable. Even the government’s commitment to recruit 4500 additional doctors has been postponed, and most of the recruitment done has been on temporary contracts.

In January-April 2015, hospitals received a total regular state funding of €43.3 million. In the same period in 2014, they received €229.6 million, and even that was not sufficient to cover their needs. The government is implementing the state budget for 2015 decided by the previous administration, which reduced by 22.9% the already insufficient state funding for healthcare.

In this way, the government is inadvertently opening the way for hospitals to try to cover their operational needs, including staff salaries, by “selling” health services to patients.

The Syriza government’s abolition of the €5 “ticket” for hospital appointments and the introduction of access to health care for 2.5 million uninsured people, including the unemployed, by the Syriza government, were positive steps, but not enough to stop the deterioration of the public health system.

Pro-Memorandum hospital administrations remain in their positions and are oriented to further privatisation and subcontracting of public health care.

The Syriza government, needs to step up its game in tune with its pre-election pledges: that is to reverse all damage being done during the memorandum year and to extend and democratise health care service provision so that it is “free at the point of use” with no exclusions.

The public hospitals, which were closed during the memorandum years, such as the special hospital for infectious diseases and the General Patission hospital, should be reopened. The government should make the “unilateral” decision not to hand over money for debt repayments and instead to redirect public funds to enable to full and immediate access to public health facilities for all.

A government that oscillates between EU-IMF pressures and the expectations of its base can go nowhere. The only “bridge agreement” that should be accepted by the people is the cancellation of the debt. We have no right to “compromise” with social disaster.

Hundreds of dock workers marched to Piraeus [Greece] on Thursday 7 May, and there was a 24-day strike in the sector in response to the government's reported intention to proceed with the completion of the sale of 67% of Piraeus Port Authority.

The strike was called by the Panhellenic Federation of Dockers (Omyle), the dock workers' union of OLP, and the union of seamen, Penen. A strike and demonstration also took place in Thessaloniki.

"They are trying in a thousand different ways to give the port to Cosco [the Chinese corporation which already operates part of Piraeus port]" said Giannis Tsalimoglou, a Piraeus worker. “Unfortunately, after three months of the coalition government of Syriza-Anel, Syriza’s electoral promises that the port will not be sold and the contract with Cosco will be cancelled have collapsed like a house of cards.

"The greatest responsibility lies with the Minister for Shipping and the Aegean, Theodoris Dritsas. From 2005 he had been here with us at demonstrations, but now he has gone over to the other side.

"Unfortunately for them, we are here today. And tomorrow and when required. My demand on the union, after today's strike, is that if the government does not commit against the selling off the port, the union should call a multi-day strike. Or even to go to camp outside the Ministry of Shipping.”

"There is an ongoing process for the privatisation of OPL, despite the government's commitments to the contrary," said Nikos Georgiou, president of the dock workers' union on Piraeus Port Authority. “Privatisation is not a matter that concerns only the workers at the port. The majority of the working-class people and the popular strata of Piraeus are against it. These are clearly neoliberal moves that have been failing for the last 20 years”.

The rally was addressed by Tasos Anastasiadis from Antarsya: "We are here today just like all previous years to oppose the privatisation of Piraeus port. The retreats and compromises which the Troika, the EU and the IMF are trying to impose on the government are translating into further privatisations, continued cuts and Memoranda. The power that can halt these moves is the workers with their struggle and strikes. Onwards until victory!”

Even during the first days of the government, and despite the programmatic statements of the minister of Shipping, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stated in an interview given to the BBC he was not averse to the further privatisation of Piraeus port. Deputy prime minister Yannis Dragasakis, on a visit to Beijing, reinstated the government's commitment to proceed with the further privatization of Piraeus port, implying that the government would sell its majority stake of the shares of the Port Authority to Cosco.

Cosco already runs part of the port of Piraeus port under a long-term contract organised by the previous Memorandum government. It has imposed worse conditions in the port's free economic zone and for its employees.

Before its election victory on 25 January 2015, Syriza was categorically against the sale of the state’s majority holding in Piraeus port, a sale that was launched by the Memorandum government of ND and Pasok. The Syriza leaders' apparent about-turn on this is a dangerous setback, among many that have occurred so far in the course of negotiations with the “EU/IMF partners” who systematically and methodically mess up and cancel out even the minimum electoral promises of Syriza.

More than ever the working class movement must intervene directly with public actions and initiatives, expressing the option of conflict and rupture. The political forces of the left inside and outside Syriza have to take immediate initiatives to avoid a humiliating compromise and thus the political and social defeat of the left.

Faced with the “fatalistic path” to the third memorandum, we do not need "false alarms" and hollow "threats" or even more "bluffs", but brave political decisions: defaulting on debt payments, abolition of Memoranda. and unravelling of the Memorandum regime. We need a plan of rupture against the domestic and international capitalist system.

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