After the horrific crime that happened in Tempi, Greece, the collision of two trains which cost 57 human lives, mostly young people and students, labor unions and federations decided to go on strike twice.
In the first one, on March 8, the participation of the workers was unexpectedly large. Hundreds of thousands of workers, school and university students participated in the demonstration, side by side, shouting “You count your profit, we count human lives”. They transformed their anger into a fight against the policies of all current and previous governments (ND, SYRIZA- PASOK) that put our lives on the scale of cost-profit.
In the second one, on March 16th, we also had a great demonstration with thousands of workers going on strike, marching and shouting “SYRIZA-PASOK- ND, this crime has a history” showing that they are all responsible for the situation of the railway system that caused 57 deaths.
All those people in the streets declared that they won’t allow people to forget or hide the causes and those responsible for this crime. They marched to say that our lives are not profit; they said “enough” to the policy that sacrifices all our needs at the altar of profit.
For all those deficiencies all the governments so far are responsible: conservative, progressive, neoliberal, social democrats or supposedly left.
Our lives matter, not profits
Fight for our needs and not for the profit of the few
Greek Federation of Construction Workers and Allied Trades
Yannis Tasioulas,
President and UITBB Secretariat Member
