The uprising in Greece, as it happens

Communist banner draped from the Acropolis

Today the Greek working class is on general strike against their government’s capitulation to the demands of the EU and IMF.

Ordinary people in Greece face massive unemployment, huge job losses, pension cuts, savage cuts in public spending, and rises in taxes on consumer spending. The Greek working class is fighting for survival in the face of the collapse of their income just as the cost of living rockets.

In the plans of the imperialist EU and the International Mugging Fund, Greek workers will bear the full cost of a crisis created by foreign and Greek banks. But those same workers have something to say about that, and are walking out of work across the country.

My intention today is to update the article throughout the day as more info comes in on the situation in Greece. In the meantime, here’s what we know since Leftfield last blogged about Greece.

On Monday, Greek teachers invaded the offices of the state TV channel, after they heard that they would be carrying an interview with the Education Minister after the news. They wanted to be part of the interview, and to put their own questions to the minister. During the news noise was heard in the background, and then programmes were disrupted for several hours. Riot cops were summoned to try and evict the teachers, who refused to leave. The cops beat them in the corridors, but they refused to budge. In the end, the channel was forced to allow the teachers a couple of minutes on air, which they used to make this statement:

“We are members of the Teachers’ with Limited Working Rights Coordination and the Pan-Hellenic Union of Unemployed Teachers. We decided to come hear today, in the studios of the government’s TV-station, for two reasons: The first one is that for six months now the Mass Media keep silent about the government’s economical measures. And the second one is that we want to break, in praxis the monologe of Education’s Ministry, the monologe of Mrs. Diamantopoulou who keeps silent about the multi-law agreement that wants to be voted and destroys the public and uncomercial education. We were “welcomed” inside and outside the studio by a team of MAT (Unions of Order Recovery) ready to beat us up. We condemn both the Education Ministry and the NET-channel Authorities for the certain event: You see that there is evidence of violence on us.

The government brings the “Stability Program” in reality by packing more than 30 students in each classroom and keeping out of schools some thousands of unemployed educators. The “New School” like the government wants to name it, in reality it is not new at all. It is really old and brings us back in time. It will be against the needs and the rights of the society in Greece. Against the workers, the parents, the students, the teachers. The government calls us to pay for the cost of Education. Calls you the parents, your children who study, us who teach. After the multi-law of Mrs. Diamantopoulou we get dismissed; she fires around 17.000 teachers who are paid by hour or are temporary employed! We thought that we were the minority, but as it seems we become the majority after they brought the IMF to us, which will result in increase of poverty and unemployment of thousands of workers. Everybody on the streets to block the economical measures, kick out IMF and all those who brought it here. Tomorow we demonstrate to block the economical measures that destroy the Education System. On Wednesday 5th of May everybody is striking, nobody works. We gather infront of the Archeological Museum at 11:00 to block the economical measures.

We take out to the streets, we rise up!”

A Greek pensioner protests the cuts to his income

Yesterday, many workers decided to start today’s general strike early. Schools, hospitals and airports were shut down as public sector workers staged impromptu walkouts. Flights in and out of Greece were grounded from midnight as air traffic controllers joined the strike. Thousands of teachers and students marched on the parliament to protest the austerity package and its impact on education. They marched past parliament, shouting “Let the rich pay for the crisis” in the direction of the MPs who were at that point debating the austerity plans.

Public sector unions have occupied the town halls in the Athens suburbs of Agios Dimitrios, Nea Ionia and Vyrona.

This morning, Greek Communists staged a dawn raid on the Acropolis, symbol of Greece and its ancient glory, draping the massive banner you can see at the top. Its message couldn’t be clearer: the Greek people are crying out for our solidarity.

Keep checking back – updates as we get them.

Update: Check out this statement signed by anti-capitalist parties all over Europe, including the Scottish Socialist Party.

Update: As Liam reports in a comment below, participants in a mass demonstration have attempted to storm the Greek parliament in Athens to prevent MPs from being able to discuss and vote through the IMF/EU package. There’s footage on the BBC site here, but it’s hard to embed BBC stuff. As soon as there’s footage on youtube I’ll stick it up on here as well.

The BBC reporter says that more were expected to join the demonstration as the day wore on, so they may manage to break police lines and get through. The police are using stun grenades against the marchers.

Elsewhere in Athens, a bank was set on fire, and apparently 3 people have been killed. There’s also been reports of mass action and violence in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

Looks like they’ve taken that off now, will keep an eye on it in case they go back to Greece though.

Update: As promised, embedded footage of the attempt to storm the parliament. The bangs you can hear are stun grenades.