Workers Revolutionary Party - GREEK TEACHERS VOTE FOR 5-DAY STRIKE

The News Line: News Saturday, 21 September 2013 GREEK TEACHERS VOTE FOR 5-DAY STRIKE

Seafarers with their union banner calling for a ‘block to fascism’ at the head of Thursday’s march in Kokkinia, Athens

GREEK teachers voted on Thursday by clear majorities for another five-day national strike starting Monday.

The final decision will be taken by the OLME (teachers’ trade union federation) Executive today.

Leading SYRIZA and ANTARSYA branch secretaries, who spoke at OLME meetings, urged a big vote to continue the strike and, once again, appealed to other workers to join with them in the fight.

Greek Communist Party (KKE) members complained that there should never have been a five-day ‘rolling’ strike, and once again called for 48-hour strikes.

KKE speakers said that the fight should not be to overthrow the government but to change its policies. They have called on the GSEE to call a one-day general strike in October.

The right-wing and social-democratic teachers and government supporters lined up with the KKE.

The General Council of the ADEDY is meeting today to ‘culminate’ the action, it said in a statement.

SYRIZA have called on the ADEDY for a three-day, Monday-Wednesday, national public sector strike next week, and on the GSEE to call a 24-hour general strike this Wednesday.

On Thursday evening 4,000 workers and youth demonstrated in the Kokkinia district of Athens for a second day running, demanding the closing down of the fascist Golden Dawn party offices in the area, following the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas last Wednesday morning by a Golden Dawn member.

The march was organised by seafarers’ trade unions, and their banner – which read ‘Block the fascists’ – headed the demonstration.

The Greek Communist Party (KKE), the Coalition of the Radical Left party (SYRIZA) and the anti-capitalist ANTARSYA participated in the march along with several trade unions, other left-wing political parties and the anarcho-syndicalists of ROSINANTE who made up almost half of the march.

Members of the Revolutionary Marxist League (RML), Greek section of the Fourth International, who joined the march called for workers’ defence squads to smash the fascists who are protected by the state and the police, and for a political, indefinite general strike to get rid of the parliamentary junta imposed by the EC-IMF-ECB troika.