On September 21, a 24-hour general strike took place in Greece against a labor reform later adopted by its parliament, a government calloused to social protest. In July, the government passed a law that allowed working until the age of 74, seven years after retirement, in order to reduce unregistered work according to the arrogant and lying propaganda espoused by the bourgeois media. In reality, the government defends the reality of continuing to work, even after retirement, since workers must do so in order to (barely) survive. Moreover, it believes that in this way it can extort more surplus value from the proletariat through taxes.

The current reform follows the same path, foreseeing proletarians working up to 13 hours a day. These grueling 13-hour days can be achieved by allowing a second part-time job from a second boss in addition to a primary full-time job. The aim here is to legalize the disgusting reality of not being able to make ends meet with a single job, even with two income-earners. Additionally, an employee can be dismissed without notice and without pay within the first 6 months. The working week is being extended to 6 days, with a slight pay increase of 40% for only the 6th day. The reform also constitutes a serious attack on the freedom to strike by imposing criminal liability on strikers who prevent other workers from working and makes blocking roads and picketing during a strike punishable by a fine of 5,000 € and up to six months in prison. The government is aware that the social situation will worsen when the next recession arrives in the coming months and has dual motives; on the one hand, it is brazenly favoring the bosses and further increasing the exploitation of workers, and on the other, it is sharpening its weapons to respond to the resumption of class struggle which is expected to follow.

However, if the government and the bosses are preparing for conflict, the labor movement is in a very different situation because it has not been able to form a united front for trade union struggle, a necessary and indispensable tool to repel the frontal attack of the bosses. The various unions into which the working class is divided are still going their separate ways, and any talk of unity in the union struggle seems hopelessly optimistic.

The September 21 strike was attended by the public sector union ADEDY, the hospital workers’ union POEDIN; the union confederation affiliated with the Greek Communist Party, PAME; various worker centers across the country; public transport and education unions; as well as dozens of industrial unions. The private sector union confederation GSEE, however, did not participate. Additionally, the demonstrations in Athens were organized separately. The most shouted slogans were true: “either their profits or our lives”, “the 8-hour working day has been and will be the conquest of the workers”, “the bosses are drowning in profits, the people in mud”. The day-long strike intimidated the parliamentary hall, worried the bosses, and made Greece itself uneasy. But despite the declarations of victory by the trade unionists, it was not the manifestation of proletarian power that was supposed to prevent the passage of this disgraceful law, which does not “take us back to the Middle Ages” as the opportunists say, but plunges us into the vortex of the most modern imperialist and warmongering capitalism in line with the dictates of the European Union.

This year the financial rating agencies are optimistic about Greece, and the bourgeoisie will certainly be happy about that, but 13 years later the country is deeply scarred by the wounds inflicted by unprecedented austerity policies, the heavy price paid by the Greek proletariat to avoid bankruptcy in 2010. Despite the EU forecasting 5.9% GDP growth in 2022 and +2.6% for this year, 30% of the country’s population is at risk of poverty, wages are still below 2010 levels, public healthcare is increasingly depleted, and pensions are stretched thin. Rising inflation and constant attacks by capital are of course falling disproportionately on the working class. Despite official statements that the crisis will end, living conditions for many proletarians have turned into an endless downward spiral. The devastating effects of climate change (for which the capitalist economy bears overwhelming responsibility) that hit Greece with fires and floods this summer, the government’s incompetence and corruption in awarding infrastructure construction contracts, the treacherous influence of political opportunism mainly represented by Syriza and the stalinized Communist Party (KKE), and the strengthening of petty bourgeois ideology that leaves the average worker unaware or, worse, indifferent to the real causes of their own suffering have all contributed to a deep crisis in the workers’ movement. But the worsening of these contradictions is also an opportunity for the rebirth of real class unions and the strengthening of the proletariat’s revolutionary and international communist party. Only a party with a program based on an intact Marxist doctrine can show the working class the way to destroy capitalism and eliminate this disgraceful regime based on the exploitation of wage labor.