Sometimes you get an
email that really makes your day. Monday 30 June the President of the trade
union of the Thessaloniki Water Workers informed us of the stunning victory
they had achieved. He just came from the annual ordinary meeting of the General
Assembly of EYATH, the Thessaloniki Water Company. There it was announced that
the Greek privatisation agency HRADF (also known as TAIPED) will shelve the
privatisation of the Greek water companies. It was a formal confirmation of
what many expected after the double whammy of local referendum and the verdict of
the Greek State Council. And a crushing defeat for the Greek government and
Eurozone President Dutch Finance Minister Dijsselbloem.
Resistance in action...
Previously I wrote about the local referendum
that the water and social movement in Thessaloniki would be organising to
prevent the privatisation of their Water and Sewage company EYATH. Spearheaded
by the union of water workers and the Greek water movement it received the
support of a broad range of groups going from the archbischop to the mayors of
the municipalities that constitute Thessaloniki. The date of the
referendum was announced at the same day as the public hearing on the European
Citizens Initiative Right2Water in the
European Parliament on 17 February 2014. The date was set for 18 May and would
coincide with the Greek municipal elections and just one week before the
European elections. The organisers of the referendum were going to ask a simple
question: Do you agree or not with the privatisation of EYATH ? EPSU supported it as did many other
European groups such as the activisits of the Berlin and Italian water
movements, who had shared their experience with organising referenda with the
Thessaloniki groups in the run up to the referendum.
---facing up to repression...
It was foreseen that the
ballot boxes would be placed in the polling stations, mainly schools. But on
the eve of the referendum, the Greek authorities represented by the Minister of
the Interior sought to prevent the referendum at the last moment. It was argued
that it was illegal to hold the referendum on the premises of the places where
the Greek municipal elections were being held on the same day. Another
objection was that the organisers would use the electoral register to ensure
people were entitled to vote, although this had been agreed with the mayors.
The organisers were threatened with police arrests if they would continue.
with a role for international solidarity...
This transformed the
role of an international delegation of observers. This group was organised by
EPSU and included trade union and other representatives from Bulgaria, France,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. It would visit polling
stations, report on possible irregulatities and in general monitor if all was
going correctly. The group was a mix of national staff and work place
representatives of EPSU affiliates as well as a more seasoned observers with
experience in monitoring elections. The delegation now found itself in the
middle of a media storm. The government attempted to surpress a popular cause
which it was bound to lose. The delegation spoke out against the action of the
government. The lines of communication were short and EPSU drew
attention of European media to what possibly could be forceful repression. EPSU
affiliated unions started a social media action in support of the referendum.
Last minute and frantic meetings were held with the mayors to consider what
could be done in Thessaloniki. It was decided that the organisers could set up
the boxes for the vote outside of the polling stations on the public pavements.
The municipal citizens' register would be used to ensure people were entitled
to vote. It overlaps largely with the electoral register. The next challenge
was to get more than 1000 volunteers to staff the polling stations. There were
fears that the threat of police arrest would deter people from assisting. This
turned out to be unfounded and all polling stations were run by several people.
What happened next was a
sign of the defiance and opposition by the Thessaloniki people. Almost 220.000
people took the time to cast a vote to give their view on the future of their
water company. This was almost 1/2 of the total number of people that were
entitled to vote in the local elections. And their verdict was clear. Very
clear. 98 per cent voted NO: we do not want the privatisation of the company. EPSU invited
the President of the local union to the EPSU Congress 22 May 2014 in Toulouse.
Our colleague Yiorgos explained to
a packed conference hall how they had achieved the victory and he thanked EPSU
receiving a standing ovation for the courage and determination he and his
colleagues had shown. The local union has about 350 members and all recognised
what a challenge this had been for the workers. EPSU unions organising
workers in the main companies of the two consortia that were bidding for the
Thessaloniki shares passed the message that they expected their companies to
respect the results of the referendum.
And then the next blow to the Troika project
to sell public companies to the private sector...
These two events, on the
one hand the popular vote on a concrete case of privatisation of public
services and on the other hand the verdict of the State Council underline the
bankruptcy of the Troika project executed by the coalition government of the
conservative party Nea Demokratia (part of the European People's Party) and
Pasok, the now almost defunct social-democratic party (member of the European
Socialist Party) after many of its members and supporters defected and have
joined the ranks of other parties, most notably Syriza. The government had
hoped to collect several hundreds of millions of Euro with the sale of the
shares in a move which was welcomed by the Dutch Finance Minister and President
of the Eurozone Jeroen Dijsselbloem in December 2013. Progress with the
programme of privatisation was seen as one of the milestones against which the
Greek government's performance would be judged to provide it with another
tranche of funding. Will the government now come with new proposals ?
The Thessaloniki fight is part of a broader
struggle - the privatisation of the electricity company PPC
It will not be so
evident for the government to come with new plans. It has also run into
problems with the privatisation of the Public Power Company PPC, the Greek
electricity company. The unions organised in GENOP-DEH have
over several years fought against the privatisation of the company and opposed
the introduction of extra taxes via the electricity bill. Its leaders have been
arrested. The union was ready to ward off the latest attempt to privatise the
company by the government. It called for a 48h strike as a Parliament Committee
was considering the sell-off on Wednesday 2 July and indicated it was prepared
to organise further strikes. For fear of disrupting the tourist season the government sought to prevent the strike and then ordered the workers back to work. Laws
dating back to the days of the Junta were used for this. The governmental
printing house worked during the night to be able to issue all workers with the
order to come back to work. The civil mobilisation has
been used in the case of teachers, seafarers and transport workers, with the
government claiming national emergencies. But a former trade union leader Nikos
Fotopoulos stated: “Without us, the cogs will not turn. Without us, there is no
electrical power" and he urged PPC employees to “tear up” the back-to-work orders.
This struggle will
continue as the union executive made known in a statement on ending the strikes
on Sunday 6 July. "We are requisitioned but not defeated and will fight on
in others ways." One of these actions will be pursued in the Greek
Parliament. Syriza the main opposition party has called for a referendum to be
organised on the issue of the privatisation of the electricity company. To do
this, the party needs the support of 2/5 of the MPss or 120 to put a referendum
on the agenda and it then needs 3/5 of MPs or 180 to demand the President to
organise the referendum. Based on reports from the Greek
press this might be possible
as the government parties only hold a very slim majority. Syriza has also
pledged to turn such decisions around when it comes to power in a warning to
investors that public utilities are not ordinary assets. And to allow
governments and municipalities to change such decisions EPSU and many other
organisations are deadset against including the so-called Investor State
Dispute Settlement procedure in the new generation of free trade agreements
like those between the EU and Canada (CETA) or between the EU and the US
(TTIP). That procedure would allow a foreign company to sue a municipality if
it was to reverse a privatisation decision for the loss of (potential) profits
in a arbitration court outside of the jurisdiction of the country of the
municipality. The claims against a local authority could be huge.
....and a wave of
action in July 2014T
The PPC union organised
a rally against the mobilisation and was joined by members of ADEDY the Greek
union organising workers in local and national administration as well as in
hospitals, 9 July. They had been out on strike that day against the
forced dismissal of several hundred workers, also part of the Greek
government's austerity plans.
Portuguese workers were
organising rallies 10 July over pay, pensions and working hours, demanding an
end to the government imposed measures. And interestingly further strikes and
actions took place on 10 July as in the UK over a million public workers held a
one day strike. Local government workers, teachers, firefighters and public
administration workers organised in the FBU, GMB, NIPSA, PCS, Unison and Unite
union came out to strike with pickets and rallies across the country. The
Cameron government was refusing to negotiate over pay increases despite the
fact that many workers in public services had lost 20 per cent in purchasing
power due to the pay freezes imposed as part of austerity measures. The
firefighters were asked to accept cuts in pensions with higher contributions as
well as later retirement, working longer for lower pensions. The firefighters
continued their actions with further strikes that started on 14 July and which
received support by EPSU and unions across Europe and beyond. The
vindictive Prime Minister Cameron retaliated against the striking public
service workers, which includes hundred thousands mainly women with low pay and
wages below the living wage. He is seeking to make it even more complex and
difficult for public service workers to hold strikes by arguing that the
threshold for approval of industrial action should be raised to 50 per cent of
the members that have to approve an action. None of the UK Tory MEPs received
that level of support in the European elections of 2014. And his
spokesperson said that strikes of public service workers should be prevented
all together. And as if to underline that the right to strike is in danger
across austerity Europe, Spanish unions organised their actions in defense of
the right to strike also on 10 July.
15 July and the election of Juncker - change to come?
This July is turning out
to be a very interesting one. Jean-Claude Juncker, the former Luxembourg
prime-minister and head of the Eurozone was elected to be the next President of
the Commission. In his speech he said that “it is unacceptable to me that
workers and retired people had to shoulder the burden of structural reform
programmes, while shipowners and financial speculators became even richer. In
the future, we need a more democractically legitimate replacement for the
Troika, and thorough social impact assessments for any new support programme.” I like to believe him. His tests will come quickly though.
Just some issues related to the Greek water struggle: On the same day as
Juncker was elected the Greek government definitely
confirmed it would not privatise the water companies. But it is said that the
officials of the Troika are not happy about this. As the government
misses so-called milestones on the basis of which progress is judged with the
structural reform agenda and which would lead to further funding being made
available to Greece. Will Juncker call the dogs off?
Another test will be what
the Commission President will do with the ECI Right2Water. He has supported it.
Will he now instruct the Commission services to introduce the necessary
legislation to implement the human right to water and sanitation? And a third
test will be on the content and transparency of the negotiations on CETA and
TTIP. Will he publish the CETA documents? Will he remove the ISDS procedure?
Chances are yes, based on what he has said in his speech to the European
Parliament, the massive number of responses received to an EU public
consultation on ISDS and the pressure of a new ECI to stop TTIP. Will it be a fundamental shift? Unlikely!
He was clear that he does support the transatlantic trade and investment
partnership. He has said that he does not believe in deficits and debts and
last but not least: he does come from the conservative party.
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