(The following article is from the May 16-31,  2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)

The following report from the All Workers Militant Front (PAME) of Greece gives a brief overview of the nationwide strike and demonstrations on May 5, led by PAME. Nearly every productive activity in Greece was shut down. Factories, construction sites and stores, ports and airports, universities and schools were paralysed. In some cases, private employers threatened to fire any employee who did not turn up at work; this was the case with the three Marfin Bank workers who died that day when their building was attacked by anarchists.

     In the early morning thousands of workers and young people were outside workplaces, defending the right of the workers to go on strike against employers' intimidation. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the demonstrations organised by PAME in 68 cities throughout Greece. At the same time, provocative groups tried to undermine the strike demonstration. The actions of provocateurs led to the death of three young bank workers after a Molotov cocktail was thrown into their building.

     In Athens, the central strike demonstration of PAME took place at Omonoia Square. Giorgos Perros, member of the Executive secretariat of PAME delivered the main speech stressing: "No more sacrifices for the bankers, for the industrialists, for the monopolies. We will make sacrifices so as to defend, all together and united, our rights, our life; so as to defend the life of our children, not hand them over to the most brutal exploitation bound hand and foot. We do not give up our gains.

     "They lie when they argue about a rescue bailout package for the country; it is a rescue bailout package for the employers, the banks, the ship-owners, the ones who have been benefited from the previous rescue bailout packages; likewise for the foreign creditors, who along with the parasites of plutocracy will plunder the wealth produced by our people for the next decades.

     "They have elaborated and gradually implemented these measures over many years. These measures are outlined in the Treaty of Maastricht, in the White Paper; they are included in all decisions of the EU Summits; they were included in the programmes of PASOK and New Democracy; likewise in the 9-point agreement between GSEE and Federation of the Greek Industrialists."

     Perros underlined: "we deserve our own Greece, which is far better than theirs, and we will struggle for it. Even if they pass these measures, we will never legitimate them in our consciousness, we will never obey the laws that impose those measures. Day by day, month by month we will gather forces to block the implementation of these measures, till the overthrow of them and their measures."

     Following the speech, a PAME march took place, against the line of concessions taken by the GSEE and ADEDY labour federations. Other groups joining the march include the All Greek Antimonopoly Rally of the Self-employed (PASEVE) and Students' Militant Front (MAS).

     At the head of the march was a delegation of the Central Committee of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), led by Aleka Papariga, General Secretary of the party.

     The protesters marched through the central streets of Athens to the parliament, where the social democratic PASOK government had tabled anti-labour measures, seeking to pass the legislation under emergency procedures. The KKE members utilised the parliamentary regulations by asking to follow the procedure that requires 180 MEPS out of 300 to adopt legislation, rather than a simple majority for the approval of the anti-people bill.