The struggle escalates with mass participation in today's nationwide strike

The participation of the workers and youth in today’s 24-hour national general strike on 28 February was huge, exactly two years after the railway crime, when two trains, a freight train and a passenger train, collided in the area of Tempe, near the city of Larissa, killing 57 people, mostly university students.

More than 1,5 million of demonstrators in Greece and abroad condemned the causes of the crime, i.e. capitalist profit, the EU policy of liberalizing the railway market, with disastrous consequences for the workers and the popular strata, in 200 strike rallies held all over the country and in cities abroad, including the one in Athens in front of the Greek parliament. They demanded that all political and criminal responsibilities for the crime of Tempe be attributed and condemned the policy that sacrifices human life on the altar of profit.

As PAME points out, today at least 2,000 workers are lacking for the safe operation of the railway, adding that “the real causes of the conflict and the horror are the ‘rails of profit’ that crash our lives for the interests of the exploiters of the people! These rails must be torn up!”.

At the same time, by participating in the strike, the class-oriented trade unions have shown that in the last two years almost 300 workers have breathed their last breath in the workplace because of the same policy, as security measures are considered as a cost for the employers and the government.

It is the same reason why the people are unprotected from natural disasters, fires and floods, because the government, the regional authorities and the municipalities refuse to fund the necessary projects and fully staff all the necessary services that are considered to be a cost.

It is the same reason why public health structures function only marginally, thanks to the self-sacrifice of doctors and all those who work in them, and why every day we see chunks of ceilings falling from schools as their maintenance is considered a  cost.

All of this is added to the bad situation that the people are experiencing with high prices, poverty, low wages, house auctions, at the same time as the government is spending billions of euros on NATO armament, involving our country in the imperialist wars.

The slogan "THEIR PROFITS OR OUR LIVES", which dominated this mass strike, shows the way to intensify the struggle for the protection of human life, for collective labour agreements, for wage increases, for the strengthening of state funding in health, education and welfare, against military armament and NATO spending, for Greece to disengage from the slaughterhouses of imperialist wars.