Army operation against Greek truck drivers: A warning to European workers

[Hannah Bell]

The conscription of striking Greek truck drivers and the deployment of the army as strikebreakers marks a new stage in the attacks on the Greek and European working class... The truck drivers strike posed a serious threat to the government’s austerity measures. Unlike the actions by workers in the civil service and in industry, whose trade unions called 24-hour stoppages and then sent them back to work without any serious damage to the economy, the six-day strike by some 33,000 truck drivers shut down important sections of the economy.

In particular, the lack of fuel at gas stations coincided with the high season in the tourism industry, one of the country’s main sources of income. But other industries were also severely hampered by the lack of transportation.

By the third day of the strike, the government sought recourse to a rarely used law. It effectively conscripted the strikers into the army by decree, and ordered them to start to work again or face draconian penalties. When the truck drivers opposed this move and sought to continue the strike, the government deployed the army to break the strike and supply airports, power stations and other facilities with fuel.

The use of the army is particularly significant because memories are fresh in Greece of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1967 to 1974. The Greek colonels carried out a coup on April 21, 1967 in order to prevent an election victory by the bourgeois politician George Papandreou, the grandfather of the current prime minister. Thousands of political opponents were jailed, tortured and killed. George Papandreou himself died in 1968 under house arrest.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pers-a04.shtml

[Sherman A1]

1. Not good at all...

First thing that came to mind was Dugout Doug burning out the Bonus Marchers

[xchrom]

2. Neoliberals have teeth - they may not be used as often

As neocons but they use them -- and here
Neoliberal austerity takes a real bite.

[sendero]

3. Nothing more or less..

... that a preview of what will happen in ANY developed country, even ours maybe ESPECIALLY ours, if the citizenry decides to say "no" to the entrenched powers.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Sickening.

"The truck drivers are fighting for their survival. Most are owner-operators and have invested their entire life savings (up to €300,000) to buy the required license. The subsequent resale of the license forms the basis of their pensions. The abolition of the licensing system, as demanded by the government, not only opens up the Greek transport system to the big European haulage firms, destroying the livelihoods of the Greek truck drivers, it also nullifies their pensions at a stroke.

The liberalization of trucking and many other occupations—taxi drivers, lawyers, pharmacists, architects, accountants, etc.—is one of the key conditions demanded by the EU and the IMF in return for the 110-billion-euro aid package for Greece. In this manner, the cost of the financial crisis and the bailout of the banks is to be offloaded onto the poor, the working class and wide layers of the self-employed.

Herein lies the deeper significance of the deployment of the military in Greece. This country is to serve as a testing ground for the implementation of the austerity programmes that are being planned across Europe. These measures are so broad and so severe that they cannot be achieved by democratic means."

[femrap]

5. No wonder the truck drivers

are fighting...the loss of their secured retirement. They'll have to work until they die and at wages less than they are getting now.

But the 'liberalization' of lawyers, pharmacists, and other professional trades??? What does that mean? I guess these professions will still have some sort of pension and that is why they are throwing the truck drivers under the bus?

The military used to stop a strike....this is very scary. What is happening in Greece is TEST GROUNDS for the rest of us.

This must be some kind of new 'political model' developed by the Bilderburgers...let the supposed Lefties/GoodGuys take over and do MAJOR damage to the Former Middle Class and Working Class all in an Orwellian 'war is peace' kind of way which sets the stage for some Dictator/Charismatic Idiot to step in and 'fool' the masses/sheeple who are angry as hell into scapegoating whomever they want....be it Muslims, Illegal Immigrants, etc.

Does anyone else see this? Look what Obama is doing here...standing up for the financial elites of banksters, Big Pharma, Big Med, Wall Street and every other fucking Big Corporation there is out there. And the 'little' people who elected him rot with jobs at $8/hour and no health insurance.

I think the Bilderburgers just want WW3 so to occupy the people and reduce population in a major way.

[Starry Messenger]

7. liberalization means privatizing.

The word gets used a little differently in Europe than it does here. They also use it for classical liberals, which here we would call libertarians and neoliberals. I think. I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't think it's a new political model, it's just capitalism. The PASOK in Greece were a compromise "left" party that was very popular when elected I think. But when you still have capitalism, this is what you end up with. In its perpetual need to expand profits, it will eat away at every source of funding except the rich. We're at the endgame I think.

[femrap]

8. I agree....I don't

believe capitalism can continue much longer. Only an idiot could believe that 'growth' could go on forever.

Well, I hate that the truck drivers are being left on their own.

Of course our unions are pretty much dead.

I still like the bumper sticker: End World Hunger. Eat the Rich.

[amborin]

6. here, in the US, the national guard acted as strike breakers....

[Odin2005]

9. More Fascism.