Thousands of workers and youth took part in big rallies in Athens and other cities.
Wednesday 8 March, WE STRIKE!
All in strike rallies across the country!
In Athens 12:30 at the Propylaea!
– To prevent the cover-up of the crime of Tempi
– For modern-safe-cheap mass transport for the people against the criminal policy of profit
PAME calls on all trade unions, the Federations, the Regional Trade Union Centres, the base level unions, to take militant decisions to participate in the strike on 8 March, to reach every workplace, to turn the anger and sadness that prevails into struggle and voice! Be the voice of the dead of the murder that took place on the trains. To flood the cities in the strike rallies with workers, students, pupils.
What happened in Tempe, Larissa last Tuesday night was a predestined crime that bears the stamp of all the governments of the last few years that privatized our country’s trains. The responsibilities of both the New Democracy government and all the governments that left the railways with huge deficiencies and gaps in the safety of services and human lives are criminal. Responsibilities do not expire with the resignation of a minister; they are not hidden behind fake tears and proclamations.
We have heard all this before after other major crimes, in Mandra, in Mati, in major fires and floods, in earthquakes, in major industrial accidents. The real cause is the policy that serves the interests of big business, of profit.
Their profits – our dead
The cost-benefit relationship in public transport and in every workplace is the real cause of every crime committed in every workplace! It is the basis that treats as a cost the safety and lives of workers, passengers, an obstacle to the growth of the profitability of business groups. It is the cause of the accident at Tempe, the reason why workplaces are being turned into graveyards.
Everything is sacrificed on the altar of profit! Passengers, drivers, workers, are the fuel of their profits, with our lives expendable.
The same situation exists in all transport, in buses, trolleybuses, metro, trams, ferries, airports, everywhere! This is what the unions in these sectors have been denouncing for years. Now they must be listened to, now immediate action must be taken so that we do not suffer new victims.
Governments – Hellenic Train – OSE are the main criminal trainmasters!
The speed to record the crime as “human error” was intended to erase the real causes, the real culprits. The working people, the railway and public transport unions, all the public and private sector unions, the student associations, the mass organizations, all these days have brought to the fore the real dimension to the crime of Tempe. The ‘silence’ that the government and those who ran to say on the first day that ‘it is not the time to assign responsibility’ has not passed.
They are attempting to erase the long-standing responsibilities for underfunding, ‘deregulating’ and compartmentalising the railway project and treating human life as a cost. They are the ones who have implemented over time the policy of commercialization and privatization of railways that the SYRIZA government started in 2017, when it sold TRAINOSE to an Italian Company for 45 million euros, even giving it a premium of 250 million euros. A contract renewed by the ND government in July 2022, giving an additional 750 million euros to the Italian company for 15 years, to run the “non-profitable line” Athens-Thessaloniki!
All those who ignored the agonizing and repeated warnings of the workers about the shortcomings in the safety of the routes and the railway work in the previous years until a few days before the murderous crime should now apologize.
This is not a time for silence, it is a time for voice and demand!
It is the time for all of us, the ordinary people who could have been on the train, to take matters into our own hands. With our struggle and our demands to protect and secure our lives, the lives of our children, our families.
Let no one allow our lives to be put on the criterion of profits, to discount safety on the altar of business interests.
– We are fighting for modern, safe, cheap transport on all public transport, against a policy that puts the safety of passengers and the rights of workers in the balance of the costs and profitability of business groups.
– We fight for mass recruitment of transport workers with stable jobs and modern rights
– Immediate measures for the modernisation of infrastructure, means and safety systems in transport
– Immediate measures to protect health and safety in all workplaces
The greatest debt today to the families of the dead and injured, students and train workers who lost their lives, is not to cover up the crime! Now is the time to assign real responsibility and punish the real culprits!
8 March – Strike!
All in strike rallies across the country
In Athens 12:30 at Propylaea
