Stefanos Kasselakis underlined the positions of SYRIZA-PS for an immediate increase in the minimum wage to at least 900 euros, determination of the minimum wage in the National General Collective Labor Agreement and securing the bargaining power in the trade union, during his meeting with the GSEE board.

Strongly criticizing the government, the president of SYRIZA-PS stated that “the government has implemented the first step of a larger plan to create precariousness in the world of work.” He accused her of having a plan for “centralization in the capital structure of the country and privatization of public services”, that she has undermined labor and trade union rights and that at the same time accuracy “troubles the whole society and the working classes”, at the same time, as he said, that incomes are not increasing.

“Incomes in our country are still very low and that’s why we are in position 24 out of 27 EU countries. Little convergence compared to the rest of Europe, whatever we say about our fiscal goals,” he stressed. In addition, he accused the government of having imposed “cheap flexible labor”.

“It is clear that SYRIZA supports your struggles, we want there to be a vesting of bargaining power in trade unionism, because it is an element of Democracy for us. It is an element of justice and an element of development because a society must be able to rest on a solid foundation, and work, the people of labor, is that foundation,” he said.

Mr. Kasselakis commented that trickle down economics is an economic theory, “economics that has not succeeded even in the United States”, mentioning that during the years of Reagan the debt in the US increased enormously. He noted that this type of development is not sustainable, “as we painfully know in Greece”.

Then the president of SYRIZA-PS emphasized that “we want the minimum wage to be increased immediately to at least 900 euros”, noting that this is self-evident as “no one can survive in this country with the current wages” and “certainly with less than 900 euros is impossible”. “We also want to be clear that we support what I understand to be a standing request of yours to determine the minimum wage in the National General Collective Bargaining Agreement.” “We want to support your struggles and be as productive as possible in this process,” said Mr. Kasselakis.

Taking the floor, the president of the GSEE, Yiannis Panagopoulos, thanked Mr. Kasselakis for the invitation, stating that the GSEE responds to the invitations of all the parties of the constitutional arc. Mr. Panagopoulos referred to the role of GSSE as the coordinating body of all trade unions in the private sector of the economy. Speaking about the private sector, he spoke of “tough situations that are experienced” and at the level of security – “or precariousness, whichever you want to choose, it’s the same” -, as well as in remuneration. “With the memoranda policies, many “weapons” have been taken away from us, many tools with which we too could restore at the institutional level some that we lost during the period of the memoranda, but also the purchasing power of our salaries, which was lowered with the internal devaluation and now it is literally in the tartars because of the accuracy,” he said. He also mentioned that after the memoranda, after the pandemic and the energy crisis, the world perceives the situation as a crisis of living and in some cases, in many social strata, as a crisis of survival. “Unions have no other way to defend themselves than to claim the restoration of the purchasing power of wages, which have been eroded,” he stressed. He commented that “sometimes there are confrontations mainly of a partisan nature and within the unions as to why you don’t do one or the other”, to add, among other things, that whatever decision the GSEE makes, if everyone is not convinced from below, primary unions, federations, labor centers do not respond.

On behalf of SYRIZA, the secretary of the KE Rania Svigou and the deputy secretary, Giorgos Vassiliadis, the head of Labor of SYRIZA, Giorgos Gavrilos, and the head of the PG for Labor and Trade Unions, Marilisa Xenogiannakopoulou, participate in the meeting.