BY GEORGES MEHRABIAN
ATHENS, Greece - Trade unions in Greece are planning strikes and protests for April 7-9 in response to the latest attack on public sector workers by the social democratic government. The parliament is currently debating an emergency bill put forward by Prime Minister Constantinos Simitis of the Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) aimed at legislating a series of concessions to be imposed on the unions at Olympic Airways.

The emergency bill was presented in the midst of negotiations between the unions and the national airline. It calls for an 18 percent wage cut, a reduction in seasonal employment, and increased and "flexible" work hours - a code word for doing away with the eight-hour work day. If the legislation is adopted, 7,000 Olympic Airways workers would have five days to sign individual agreements accepting these conditions or face firings.

The emergency bill draws on laws still on the books from the period of the military dictatorship that ruled Greece in 1967-73. In early February this year, parliament declared it had the legal right to legislate labor contracts, in a prelude to the current attack on the unions.

When the emergency measure was announced March 31, Olympic Airways employees stopped work for three hours and about 200 descended on the airline headquarters in an impromptu rally. Several hundred workers marched on parliament April 2, as workers at utilities and other public enterprises struck for three hours.

A number of union actions are planned for April 7-9. The General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) has called for a general strike and a march on parliament April 9. The port workers plan to stop work April 8-9 in response to privatization plans for the ports.

The PASOK government announced a 14 percent devaluation of the Greek drachma March 14 and said Athens would enter the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. This is part of the Greek capitalists' attempt to drive through major austerity measures in the name of qualifying to join the European Monetary Union by 2001. The attacks on Olympic Airways workers are seen as a test case for future assaults on other public and private sector workers. "By 1999, we will restructure all public services and privatize all those which are not of strategic importance," stated National Economy Minister Yiannos Papantoniou. "We are the party of radical reform," he continued.

The stock market has risen sharply in response to the government's recent moves.

The current face-off with the Olympic Airways workers coincides with negotiations between the manufacturers association and the GSEE over the private sector workers' contract. The bosses are offering a two-year contract with a 3.5 percent wage increase for 1998. The GSEE is demanding a 5 percent increase. The bosses and government feel emboldened by the decline in union membership over the last years. The capitalist daily Kathimerini bragged March 12, "Dwindling union membership - third lowest in the European Union, down from 33.8 percent of the workforce in 1985 to 24.3 percent - has reduced labor's clout. Strike turnout has been low, and attendance at last year's May Day rally, traditionally a union show of strength, was embarrassing."

Meanwhile, the PASOK government has launched attacks on immigrant workers in Greece. Blaming crime on immigrant workers, Simitis has ordered a wave of deportations. Albanian immigrants are particularly targeted, with more than 3,000 being deported in the last week of March alone.

The measures have put wind in the sails of various right- wing forces. Three rural municipal town village councils have already taken unconstitutional measures against immigrant workers ranging from curfews to roundups and beatings by vigilantes. The targets are overwhelmingly Albanian workers. In the village of Yiannitsohori, near Pyrgos, a group of Albanian farm workers were rounded up by vigilantes and taken to the police after one of them refused to work extra hours in the fields. In response, the teachers federation OLME in Athens has called a demonstration for May, and a coalition of political groups opposing the racist anti-immigrant attacks are planning a demonstration April 14.  
 
 
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