The invocation of emergency powers and use of state violence to smash the Athens subway strike has shattered all claims that it is possible to shift the policy of the state by mass pressure from below.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/29/pers-j29.html)

What is occurring is a historic transformation of class relations. Two decades after the collapse of the USSR, the European ruling class condemns the working class to a future of poverty and social deprivation. Increasingly, the repressive machinery of the state is mobilized to criminalize and smash all forms of collective working class resistance.

The Trots are right here. I am not sure about the "historic transformation of class relations", though. It looks to me like this has been the "class relations" for a long time. But the next two sentences strike me as correct.

The rest of the piece is just an excuse to run down unions and any non-Trot lefties out there. It is too bad that the Trots can't see past their own frenetic identity issues, toward a large-scale cooperation of working class groups. The idea is to have the entire working class together, acting as a huge hammer to bust up the capitalists - not whatever it is the Trots are actually doing. All that being said, if you sift through all the nit-picking, partisanship, there are some nuggets of analysis here.

The Trots are right here. I am not sure about the "historic transformation of class relations", though. It looks to me like this has been the "class relations" for a long time. But the next two sentences strike me as correct.

The rest of the piece is just an excuse to run down unions and any non-Trot lefties out there. It is too bad that the Trots can't see past their own frenetic identity issues, toward a large-scale cooperation of working class groups. The idea is to have the entire working class together, acting as a huge hammer to bust up the capitalists - not whatever it is the Trots are actually doing. All that being said, if you sift through all the nit-picking, partisanship, there are some nuggets of analysis here.

Man, they just can't help themselves, theirs is petty bourgeois revolutionary marxism. It is small wonder that the Trots do best with college students, by and large middle and upper class. Excuse my presumption but I think part of it is simply that they want to fore-go the work of organization. Boring. And that makes the idealistic nonsense of a successful spontaneous uprising very attractive, particularly to these recent generations bred to instant gratification. Much the same might be said for most 'anarchists'. In this both ultimately end up serving the purpose of the bosses, even if they can't see it. Class consciousness and solidarity are not achieved overnight and premature overreach will result is serious setbacks like the Textile Strike of 1934 in the South.

Greeks strike ahead of national walkout

Greek doctors, dockers and public-transport workers went on strike against crippling austerity measures today ahead of a general strike later this month.

"The brutal suppression of workers' basic and fundamental rights and the bleeding dry through taxation of workers and pensioners have gone beyond all limits," private-sector union federation GSEE said when it announced the February 20 general strike.

Thousands of protesters rallied in separate locations around Athens.

About 500 hospital workers rallied outside the health ministry in central Athens.

Doctors and ambulance staff walked out, leaving public hospitals with only emergency cover.

Athens's buses stood idle, as did suburban rail and ferry services.

But underground workers were still subject to a civil mobilisation order that the government used to break an eight-day strike last week.

Public-sector union Adedy declared a three-hour stoppage from noon in solidarity.

Unemployment has hit more than 26 per cent as regressive EU and IMF-imposed austerity measures have destroyed what's left of the Greek economy.

And many workers have not been paid for months.

Workers are also protesting against the abolition of collective bargaining agreements and planned pension changes.

Most government employees have also had to endure 25 per cent pay cuts as Greece struggles to meet the terms of its international creditors.

The strikes followed brutal suppression of a protest on Wednesday by communist-aligned trade unionists.

Pame supporters occupied Labour Minister Yianni Vroutsi's office after he announced further attacks on the social security system.

Riot police arrested 35 protesters and injured nine more as they dragged them to waiting police vans.

Hundreds marched to the prison where the detained activists were held, chanting: "Release the workers from the police station, they are not terrorists, they want jobs."

The 35 were later freed to face trial on February 12 on charges of "illegal loitering in a public place."

Communist Party general secretary Aleka Papariga told the rally outside the jail: "When a government is not prepared to carry out even the slightest retreat in the face of the people who are suffering, then it has no other solution other than violence."

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/content/view/full/128926

Assault against PAME trade-unionists and workers who were demonstrating at the Ministry. 35 cadres of the class-oriented movement were arrested.

Yesterday’s (30/1) savage assault by the riot police against trade-unionists of class-oriented federations and trade unions at the Ministry of Labour, where they went immediately to protest against the unacceptable statements of the Minister of Labour G. Vroutsis that the social-security system “was built on the basis of clientelist relationships”, is related to the decision taken by the government to escalate the authoritarianism and repression against the working class-people’s struggles in order to implement the harsh measures which make the people destitute and in order to curb the organized struggle of the people. Statements that presage a new attack on the social-security system.

The naked violence and savagery of the government which sent the riot police and arrested 35 PAME trade-unionists, injured 9 workers is the next link in the chain of the “law and order” operation being rabidly implemented in the recent period by the government in order to repress the struggles of the people against the anti-people political line and to intimidate the labour and people’s movement. THE MOBILIZATION OF THE WORKERS FROM THE VARIOUS SECTORS WAS IMMEDIATE. They gathered outside the Ministry of Labour. However, the riot police were able to drag the 35 trade-unionists, who they had arrested, to the police vans using batons and tear-gas, pushing back the demonstrators who had gathered together in a mass solidarity demonstration outside the Ministry of Labour.

The very right of the people to strike, to demonstrate in an organized way and to fight against the anti-worker offensive which is the strategy of capital is being targeted by the government and the bourgeois class which it in reality serves.

In order to pass the tests of the “investors”, i.e. the domestic and foreign monopolies, the government, hand in hand with the Judiciary which has a clear class character, is attempting to impose a deathly silence all over the country, offering guarantees of security for capital against the labour and people’s movement.

The provocation of the government has failed

The government , some hours afterwards, disseminated tampered photographs to the bourgeois media allegedly from the office of the Minister of Labour with folders and furniture scattered all over the place, in order to convince people that the delegation of PAME and the trade unions invaded the Ministry in order to cause damage and to vandalize. The PAME trade-unionists exposed the provocation, stating categorically that our class-oriented labour movement does not have such a rationale and practice and that they are trying to set up a provocation against the working class-people’s struggle.

The statement of the government’s spokesperson was provocative and slanderous, who not at all by chance called the protest of the class-oriented trade unions a “form of violence” and “extremism”, associating in an underhand and provocational way the forms of struggle of the people’s movement with the “terrorist” attacks of recent weeks. Thus it has been very clearly confirmed that the real goals of these acts were the intimidation of the people and the repression of the labour and people’s movement. Thus it has been borne out that it is the class struggles which in reality disturb the atmosphere of consensus and the deathly silence which the government wants to impose.

THEIR INTIMIDATION WILL NOT SUCCEED. The demonstrators, with a very large rally, combative and organized, who had gathered outside the Ministry of Labour marched to the General Police Directorate of Athens, where the trade-unionists had been detained, shouting slogans, such as “Release the workers from the police station, they are not terrorists, they want jobs” and “the law and order of the bosses will smashed by the just cause of the workers”, As the time passed, the solidarity was reinforced and the number of people outside the police station increased.

The anger and solidarity is overflowing

Dozens of statements by trade unions, labour centres, federations and movement organizations concerning the provocative repressive assault of the government are being issued continuously in the aftermath of the events.

The GS of the CC of the KKE was at the rally outside the Athens’ Police Directorate, having arrived from the farmers’ mobilizations, and stressed the following in her statements: “We demand only one thing from the Minister of Labour. That he bring the video with the damage allegedly caused by the representatives of the trade union movement who wanted to demonstrate, and justifiably so, about the provocative statements which really stir things up, and give it to the TV channels. Let him show us the video. What is the damage? 40 people went, face to face, trade-unionists, representatives of organizations, to do what? To destroy the offices? To destroy the computers? To beat up the Minister? This is ridiculous. And, of course, when a minister makes provocative statements, the representatives of trade union organizations have the right to go and demonstrate the next day. This is all that happened and nothing else (…) when a government is not prepared to carry out even the slightest retreat in the face of the people who are suffering, then it has no other solution other than violence. But the people have much more strength and can repel the state repression. Because basically, as numerous as the mechanisms of the state are, the people are more numerous. And the people should not be afraid of this. They should be afraid of the torments which are on the way. And for this reason they must acquire courage, resistance and fight against the lies and the slanders. As they have slandered the workers that whatever gains they have are the product of corrupt favours, they are now again slandering by presenting the workers as vandals...”

A combative response and a new continuation of the demonstrations

Late in the afternoon it was announced that the detentions were transformed into arrests and that the Attorney charged the 35 trade-unionists with disturbance of the peace and aggravated damage. The rally outside the Athens’ Police Directorate continued until late at night and a new demonstration was arranged for the next day so that all the charges against the arrested militants of the class-oriented movement are dropped and that they be released.

At the same time on Thursday 31/1 the seamen, health-workers, workers on the urban buses and railways are on strike, while at the same time the farmers’ mobilizations are continuing and the preparations for the general strike in February are already being intensified, which has been scheduled for the middle of February.

The trial of the trade-unionists

In the end, the 35 trade-unionists were set free. Previously, they had been arraigned instantaneously to be tried, with the charge of “illegal loitering in a public place”, but the trial was postponed to the 12th of February, as the Ministry’s witnesses did not appear.

It is indicative that the trade-unionists were not arraigned on the charge of “aggravated damage”, something the Minister had claimed in a provocative way, accusing the trade-unionists of PAME of “damaging the offices”. Every hour that passes exposes the fact that this accusation could not be substantiated.

In these conditions the strengthening of international class solidarity with the struggles in Greece and with PAME is necessary.

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2013/2013-01-31-epithesi-sto-pame/