Greeks Begin Two-day Strike as Banking System is Saved From Meltdown

Greek public sector workers today began a 48-hour national strike that is a first test of the Government’s ability to enact new austerity measures agreed with the EU and IMF in return for billions of euros in aid.

Ministries, tax offices, schools, hospitals and public services were shutting down ahead of a midday rally of civil servants outside Parliament, organised by Adedy, the country’s main public sector union.

“We want an end to the freefall of our living standards,” said Spyros Papaspyros, the head of Adedy, which represents about half a million workers. “I think this will be one of the biggest protests we’ve seen in the last decade.”

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Greece Welcomes Its New IMF Overlords With Day Of Rioting And National Strikes

What do you do when you are the prime minister of a bankrupt country and your only recourse is to get the Washington D.C.-based IMF to come in and tell you you have to cut wages by about 120% and fire 75% of the country (especially after the same Germans you recently demanded WWII reparations from, mysteriously have decided in the eleventh hour to have their last laugh at your expense).

Why, you send in the national guard, armed with fake six-pack ridged bulletproof vests and gas masks, to repeat the miracle of Thermopylae against the marauding population which has suddenly realized that the past 10 years of chimeric happiness were a one-time miracle thanks to Mr Goldman and fat, and somewhat stupid, uncle Almunia.

The next thing you do, once you realize you are about to have a [revolution|uprising|civil war] is to declare a moratorium on your €300 billion of debt, make your people happy and stick it precisely to the same bankers that you complain about every single day for “speculating” against you. Tomorrow Greece will face the trifecta of a much delayed hangover as 1) its bonds hit 9% as the hedge funds who have been buying up in expectations of a snapback capitulate, 2) EuroStat declares its deficit was officially 14%, and 3) a Greek civil servant strike in their fourth national walkout this year.'

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A Turning Point in Europe

Wednesday’s general strike in Greece, involving 2 million workers in the public and private sectors, marks a turning point in the political situation throughout Europe. It represents the most significant manifestation of a growing movement of resistance to the attempt by Europe’s governments and corporations to make workers pay for the economic crisis and the multi-billion-euro bailout of the banks.

At the very onset of this new movement of the working class, two fundamental characteristics have emerged: the movement assumes a cross-border and international character, and the workers immediately come up against the bankruptcy of their old trade union and political organizations—all of which are wedded to a nationalist program.'

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Nationwide Strike Paralyzes Greece, Rioting Spreads to Spain

Central Athens echoed with the angry chants of tens of thousands of protesters demonstrating against the Socialist government's austerity measures, as major unions staged a 24-hour nationwide general strike.

The Wednesday march was marred by violence when a group of about 20 youths broke away from the march and started throwing Molotov cocktails and heavy objects at police, damaging bus stops in Athens' Syntagma Square, where the Greek parliament is located.'

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Why These Strikers May Tear Down the EU Empire

Looks like today the British workers outside the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire have been twinned with the striking workers at the shipyards at Gdansk in 1980: and for any worker, there could be no greater honour.

Gdansk was the moment when Polish workers stood against the Soviet empire and said there would be no more submission: 'On our knees before God, but on our own two feet before all men.'

Their strike spread across Poland, and cracked the power of the quislings in Warsaw who did Moscow's work. The strike was the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire.

Today the strike in Lincolnshire has spread across Britain to contractors at the nuclear power plants Sellafield and Heysham, to Grangemough oil refinery and power stations at Longanet, Warrington and Staythorpe, to contractors at the South Hook LNG terminal in Milford Haven, and to Croyton oil refinery in Essex.

Thousands have gone out. The strikes have gone wild cat.

And all of it is right. For what else can British workers do when their own parliament has turned over the power to control Britains' borders and Britain's labour laws to the Brussels empire?

There is no point in saying, 'The workers must obey the laws that govern employment.' The laws which now govern employment in this country are no longer legitimate. They are no longer the laws drawn up by British democracy.

They are the laws drawn up by the European Commission. They are laws to which a generation of Britain's politicians have signed up, giving away powers they had no right to give away.

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Protectionism - Globalisations Dark Side

AS POLITICIANS know only too well, even the best chosen words can turn out to be hostages to fortune. Six months ago, President Nicolas Sarkozy boasted that when there is a strike in France these days no-one notices because it is simply not such a big deal.

Two years ago, Gordon Brown stated that British jobs should be for British workers. Surveying the industrial unrest which has swept through both countries both leaders must now be wishing that they had kept a firmer bridle on their tongues. Instead of playing to the gallery - as they intended when they basked in their self-confident rhetoric - their comments have come back to bite them.

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