Communist Party of Greece (KKE) statement on the upcoming Greek National General Strike.
We are going on strike!
This is the widespread call to struggle that the trade unions across the country are sounding for 28 February, the day when the private and public sectors will come to a standstill, two years after the crime in Tempe.
On that day, workers in factories, construction sites, shops, restaurants, services, etc. will participate in the strike en masse, together with the self-employed, small craftsmen and tradesmen.
University students will take to the streets together with all the people; pensioners will protest with their children and grandchildren, in a great militant demonstration that will unite those who are experiencing the results of a policy that is plunging the whole country into Tempe-like tragedies.
Under the slogan “Their profits or our lives”, the trade unions, which have been organizing the struggle since the first day of the crime, are taking the lead to insure that there is no cover-up and that the real culprits are held accountable. They are targeting the policies of the governments and the EU, the big business groups and the hunt for profits that expose the peoples to all kinds of dangers. The policies that, in order to protect profitability, treat people’s lives as a cost and every right as an obstacle: from measures to protect people’s lives in workplaces and neighbourhoods, in the means of transport, in universities and schools, to public and free health and education, workers’ rights and so on.
While counting the days for the big strike, the Labour Centres and Federations, hundreds of trade unions and mass organizations call on the workers all over the country to turn their anger into struggle against the real causes of the problems faced by the people and to flood the streets on 28 February.
“The profits of the capitalists suffocate the needs of the people. Our breath of life is the struggle for our just cause to overthrow this system!”
With the above slogan, the Party Organizations of the KKE are carrying out a political campaign throughout the country, handing out the pamphlet of the KKE in view of the strike on 28 February. “On 28 February we are going on strike and taking to the streets! Let the big employers, the government, the state feel that the people who are determined to fight are breathing down their necks! Now is the time for the organized people to speak up! We take the torch from the mass people’s rallies of 26 January, organized by the Association of the Relatives of the Tempe Victims, hundreds of trade unions, student unions and other mass organizations, but also from the mass youth demonstrations that followed on 7 February, which showed that the crime in Tempe has not been forgotten and will not be covered up! The workers of all sectors, the farmers who have been fighting for more than a month in the roadblocks, the university and school students, the self-employed, the small tradesmen and craftsmen, the women of the popular strata, should unite in a great sea of people all over the country!
Two years ago, millions of people across the country chanted “Their profits or our lives!”. We fight back in a more militant and organized way! We are claiming our lives!
The fact that the New Democracy government has been shaken can be a devastating blow to the whole system of profit, its parties, the capitalist state, the exploiting class, who enjoy untold wealth while we live in poverty, injustice and insecurity, facing daily tragic incidents like Tempe.”
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