Workers Revolutionary Party - REPLACE GREEK TUC BUREAUCRATS

The News Line: News Monday, 22 December 2008 REPLACE GREEK TUC BUREAUCRATS – demand youth

Greek workers marching through Athens during the nationwide revolt that continued into a third week yesterday

GREEK school and university students and young workers staged various anti-government and anti-police mobilisations over the weekend throughout Greece.

Dozens of local rallies were held and a number of radio and television stations were occupied for students to broadcast their messages. On Saturday night, thousands of youth gathered at the Exarchia district of Athens at the spot where the 16-year-old school student Alexis Grigoropoulos was shot dead by a police Special Guard on December 6.

The GSEE (Greek TUC) building remained occupied by students, young workers and unemployed youth who demand a general strike.

The Athens Trades Council issued a short statement condemning the occupation as a ‘provocation’ against the trade union movement.

The Occupation Committee replied that the building belongs to the working class. But the Occupation Committee decided to end this ‘symbolic occupation’.

Calls by a number of trade unionists at the Open Meetings of the occupation to appeal to trade unions and working class organisations to build up a workers-students’ united front and to call for the replacement of the GSEE counter-revolutionary bureaucrats, were refused by the Occupation Committee which is dominated by self-described ‘anti-state anarchists’.

The School Students Co-ordinating Committees and the University Students’ Occupations Committees have called a mass rally in Athens for Tuesday.

The teachers have called for collaboration with school and university students in ‘building up an all-education front against the government policies’ and a mass Athens rally on January 9.