A massive "no" to
GREECE building companies hit by a decline in orders from the Arab countries in the wake of falling oil prices.
At the same time, measures recognizing divorce by mutual consent and equality between the sexes at work. None-
Papandreou's policies theless, PASOK held back a project for lifting the ban on abortion opposed by the ultra-conservative Greek Orthodox Church. However, hundreds of thousands of backstreet abortions are carried out every year, and 25 per cent of young women under 20 have
TWO AND A HALF MILLION wage earners in the public and private sectors paralyzed Greece on January 15. A massive reaction against the PASOK government's austerity policy, it was the biggest general strike the country has experienced since the fall of the colonels in
1974.
JEAN-JACQUES LAREDO
You get some idea of the breadth and scope of this action when you remember that the total economically active population is 6.4 million, of whom a little under 3 million are wage earners.
strike surpassed the one on
This
1985, at the height
November 14, of the movement sparked by the introduction of Andreas Papandreou's austplan. It confirms the growing erity opposition to the economic orientaof the [PASOK] team that tions came to power in 1981.
When
Andreas
Papandreou's
PASOK party won a clear victory in the legislative elections over the New
Democracy, the right-wing party that had ruled the country since 1974, it had only been in existence for seven years. Its program continues to be distinguished by a sometimes vague populism.
Inflation in
Greece is around 25%, and the rural exodus grows daily (DR)
10
The two first years of the PASOK majority were marked by a policy of economic revival through increasing consumption, restructuring of agriculture in order to boost production and through modernizing the industrial plants. Parallel to this, in 1981 and 1982 a series of reforms were introduced that improved the situation of the most disadvantaged.
A sliding scale of wages was established. Low wages and pensions were raised. A month's paid vacation for everyone was instituted and a national health system was set up.
PASOK refused to undertake an extensive program of nationalizations. When it carried out nationalizations, it did so in faltering industries, under pressure from the workers. Such measures were applied to shipyards belonging to the fabulously wealthy shipbuilder Niarchos and to some had between one and seven abortions.
In dealing with a state machine that became clogged with rust during the dark years of the dictatorship, Papandreou chose to tread softly. On the one hand, he liquidated the legal heritage of the dictatorship, abolishing emergency laws that had been the books since 1974 by other, he doubled the salaries of the ordinary and special police, while reducing their workweek from 44
Very rapidly the PASOK found facing a difficult economic situation. Greece continues to dependent on foreign capital and technology. The World Bank even classes it in the category of coun tries with intermediate incomes that export manufactured products (along
Brazil, the Philippines Portugal. Its per capita GNP falls between that of Israel and Venezuela.
Andreas Papandreou took the reins of power after the entry of Greece into the EEC on January 1, 1980. The effects of Common Market membership have proved negative for Greek agriculture. After the removal of protectionist measures, EEC products penetrated the Greek market to the detriment of other imports. But Greek products did not find an opening on EEC markets. Massive agricultural trading deficit
The production costs and quality of Greek products were not up to EEC standards. With Greece's entry into the EEC, its agriculture trading balance went from the black into the red. Today this deficit has grown to 3,000 million US dollars per year.
Unemployment and the exodus from the land have increased. About two-thirds of the 10 million Greeks lived in the greater Athens area. Alongside the classical industries, there is an informal economy. For 1985, it is estimated that "invisible receipts" amounted to 1,300 million dollars, coming from such sources as unregistered housing of tourists. International Viewpoint 9 February 1987
International Viewpoint 9 February 1987
The policies of the first two years of the PASOK majority were largely financed by loans from foreign banks, building up 15,000 million dollars in foreign debt. Moreover, while Greece has not resorted to borrowing from the IMF, it has not managed to escape from the guidelines it has laid down.
Priority is given to fighting incontinues to hover around 25 per cent per year), reducing the budget deficit by cutting public spending and by cutting wages.
same time, risen by 50 per cent and indirect
But PASOK has taken advantage of a vacuum on the political scene. principal electoral rival] is seen for what it is, the party of the authoritarian and anti-social right.
The memory of its years in office and the compromises of some of its members with the dictatorship still occurred when PASOK members loyal to the government took the conflict Council of having taken an illegal rejection of PASOK's policy was demonstrated in the municipal elections in October. Three of the four main city governments - Athens, Piraeus and Salonica - were won by the New Democracy. The Communist Party called for a vote to punish PASOK. It being against the law not to vote, the number of blank ballots reached 25 per cent.
The latest general strike has demonstrated that the Greek working class does not intend to take the government's kicks in the teeth lying down.
GREECE
The demonstrators called notably for a readjustment of wages to the real and not estimated rate of inflation and the re-establishing of collective bargaining.
Since October 1985, buying power has dropped by an average of 10 per cent, and the situation can only get worse when the price freeze, instituted in November, is lifted on February 2,
The demonstration of strength on
January 15 was the sharpest warning that PASOK has had. Papandreou knows that he can lo longer count on his charisma alone to get the workers and the people to swallow his government's medicine. D