A sea of people flooded the streets of Athens and other cities in Greece on 20 November, 2024.

Thousands of strikers, who took part in the 24-hour national strike of the trade unions of the private and public sectors of the economy, put forward their just demands. They demanded wage increases, money for the public health and education systems and for Greece to get out of the war slaughterhouses.

The strike demonstration in Athens was huge.

The street in front of the Propylaea of the University of Athens, where the rally took place, was packed with people. Immediately afterwards, this human river marched to the Greek Parliament.

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, took part in the strike rally at the Propylaea and stressed in the media that “Today the workers all over the country are sending a strong and clear message in all directions: give money for wages, for education, for health and not for the slaughterhouses of war. The effectiveness of this struggle requires continuity, more mass participation of all workers in their unions, organization in an anti-capitalist direction and in an alliance of private and public sector wage earners with the urban and rural middle strata, youth, pensioners, and women”.

“Today’s strike is a message of hope, determination and optimism, and this is how we will continue in the workplaces, in all sectors,” said Giorgos Perros, member of the Secretariat of the All Workers’ MIlitant Front (PAME), in which dozens of sectoral federations and Labour Centres, i.e. local trade union associations from all over the country, that support the class struggle are rallied.

“This is the strength of the organized working class,” he said. “This is the strength of the unions, the new unions that we are establishing day by day. This is the power of the working class. We continue. We will not stop. The path of struggle, of organizing, of fighting for our daily needs is the one that breathes life into us and provides us with a way out,” he pointed out.

"In every workplace and sector, we are contributing to make the current questioning the dominant anti-people policy even stronger. To strengthen the struggle against the anti-people policy of the government, against the whole system of barbarity, exploitation and wars, for the people to become the protagonists, for the life that we deserve, on the path to overthrow the system”, said Nikos Mavrokefalos, member of the Executive Board of the Athens Labour Centre (EKA), i.e. all the trade unions of the Greek capital, speaking at the strike rally. “Now the workers must get a foretaste of the power of organization and struggle in a more determined way. Everyone should join their trade unions. In alliance with the self-employed and the poor farmers, the school and university students,” he said, stressing that “today's strike is not a climax but a stepping stone towards the escalation of the struggle”!

The rally opened with a message from the General Union of Palestinian Workers, which conveyed militant greetings to the Trade Unions of Greece. At the same time, the Union welcomed the support and solidarity of the trade unions of Greece to the Palestinian people who are facing the genocide unleashed against them by Israel and its allies. For the same reason, the rally began with an excerpt from Brecht’s poem “From A German War Primer”, read by Nikos Karagiorgis, president of the Greek Actors’ Union.

21.11.2024