SocialismToday Socialist Party magazine | |
AT THE end of 2010, a non-payment movement began to
develop in Greece with people refusing to pay road tolls. Having had
enough of the continuous attacks from the government on living standards
– and angry at the prevarication of the organised workers’ movement –
people decided to act. Although it has not developed to its full
potential, as yet, this shows the possibilities for building resistance
against the cutbacks. The movement has spread to public transport where
people refuse to pay bus and metro fares. In the last four months, more
and more people have got involved, forming local committees in
workplaces and neighbourhoods, organising big public meetings and days
of action. The campaign has been gaining increasing popularity
especially among the youth. It has become a broad movement of mass
disobedience under the general slogan: ‘We can’t pay. We won’t pay’. A day of action was organised on 9 April by the
coordinating body of local non-payment committees. Ticket machines were
closed in every metro, train and tram station in Attica and an open
meeting followed in the main square in Athens. According to Reuters (10
March), the non-payment movement is "a major threat to the Greek
government", with 56% supporting it and only 39% disagreeing with it.
The number of drivers refusing to pay the road tolls each day has
reached 8,000 people – from 6% to 18% within a year – and 40% of public
transport passengers refuse to pay any fares in their daily commute. (inews.gr
22 February) The government argues that cuts are the only way of
paying back its debt, using the economic crisis as an excuse. Yet, for
the last twelve years every government underfunded urban transport.
Greek people have been paying over and over again for supposedly
improved public transport through direct and indirect taxation. All they
have got back is a 40% rise in fares, and closures of bus routes and
train lines. People are realising that they can no longer afford
to accept this. By launching and expanding the non-payment campaign,
they can have their say on how public transport should work: for the
benefit of all, not for the big companies which, alongside the
government, are pushing through privatisation in every part of the
public sector. The campaign calls for a refusal to pay increased
fares, for free public transport from 5-8am – as in the 1980s – and for
free transport for the unemployed, people with disabilities, low-paid
workers and students. Many public transport drivers give their tacit
support by letting campaigners on buses to ask other passengers not to
validate their tickets, or by not stopping to allow inspectors to issue
fines. Drivers are not yet able to fully express their
support as they are under immediate threat of the sack. At this point,
however, the main goal is to link the movement with the transport
workers and fight together for a free, safe and environmentally-friendly
public transport system. The main advantage of the non-payment movement
is that it is independent of the national union bureaucracy, thus more
free to expand and include other public-sector services that are being
threatened with privatisation. The government has been trying to break the
movement. It has threatened that it is ‘illegal’, and there have been a
few incidents of people being taken to police stations – although
without any real consequences. It is now creating a new body of
inspectors, closely collaborating with the police. The response should
be united resistance, organised by the local non-payment committees. On
a bigger scale, the government cannot send hundreds thousands of people
to court. Only a mass united campaign can win. Xekinima (CWI Greece) has supported the campaign
since it started and is urging its expansion to combat rising water and
electricity charges. Xekinima consistently emphasises the big potential
of a mass non-payment movement, referring to the example of the Thatcher
government’s defeat in the 1990s by the anti-poll tax campaign in
Britain. Xekinima calls for the formation of democratically
organised non-payment committees, linking them with public transport
workers and rank-and-file trade unionists. It campaigns against all the
austerity measures taken by the government for its ‘bailout’ by the EU
and IMF, and for the need for rolling 24-hour and 48-hour general
strikes of the different sectors, culminating in repeated three-day
general strikes. |
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