The offices of the Public Employment Service (DYPA – former OAED) were visited by the president of SYRIZA-PS, Stefanos Kasselakis, where he had a meeting and a discussion on all matters with employees of the service.

Addressing workers, he said: “A message should be sent at this election. I have made a public commitment to reinstate 13th and 14th salary to civil servants, throughout the State. And I tell you clearly, that if the Greek people honor us, when the next parliamentary elections are to be held, with their vote, it will be something that I will do from the first day of governance. Why; Because quite simply your real salary has gone down a lot over the last ten or so years. I know you can’t survive so accurately, with so little income and taxation. We know it: the bill doesn’t come out. That much is clear. And there is at this moment in our society a part, a 20%, which really lives better. And there is another part, which is either stagnant and slowly being gnawed away and their savings are reduced, or they are literally starving. And this is not a developed, modern country, in my opinion. Especially when combined with privatization in Health and disinvestment in public Education. So, there must be a completely different model of governance.”

Continuing, he mentioned that Greece is diverging from Europe: We were the first poor country to join. We have received so much funding, so much support and financial support. Why do we remain second from the bottom in purchasing power and second from the top in indirect taxes? The worst in Europe for young children, 18-35 years old, who still live in the children’s room. Why do we have the most debt in Europe? Have there been no ideas and suggestions? There have been so many. The answer is: lack of political leadership and leadership and integrity.”

He answered the objections about “where will he find the money” for the implementation of his commitments: “When you are told, where will you find the money, this question, my dear fellow citizens, is when a country must build its Fund from zero to 37 billion. Then you ask this question. When you are at 37 billion for a long time, you have growth, you are supposed to have high taxes, you have support from Europe in the midst of covid, you know what the question is: Where do the money? That’s the question.”

Mr. Kasselakis underlined: “We are on your side. You know very well that we do not agree with a productivity bonus, which becomes terrorism in your daily life. It becomes a lever of a party state, a booty state. Instead of being able to have all of us, I believe , a clear transparency, to give better services to the Greek citizen, but so that a public employee can be paid properly and can have personal satisfaction from his work. We cannot have two-speed workers in this country, after all years of deconstruction of the State from the memoranda”.

Generalizing, he said: “When a country has huge social problems and inequalities, you don’t rely on private initiative from the cartels to solve them. It’s as if the Justice system works efficiently for the little one, for the one who doesn’t have the ability to endure years in court As if the banking system is working properly, to provide liquidity, when 9 out of 10 small and medium-sized people cannot pass through the bank’s door. those who have a good starting point? This must be structurally changed.

Regarding the action of SYRIZA, he said: “We will do everything we can as a parliament. Unfortunately, they either ignore us when we ask questions, or they reject the law proposals we make. This is the arrogance of the 41%. And we have to change that. Not for to have a strong opposition in these European elections. We have to change them, so that these more socially sensitive proposals can become a message from society to the government. Otherwise, literally, we will receive scorched earth in the end. A society that will have bent and a system that will have benefited the few and chosen. And this is not a modern society. It’s not a society we deserve.”

In closing he assured: “The first step, then, is in two and a half weeks from now.”

The president of SYRIZA-PS was accompanied by the secretary of the Central Committee of the party, Rania Svigou, the head of Social Cohesion Katerina Notopoulou, the head of Labor, Giorgos Gavrilos, Marilisa Xenogiannakopoulou, member of the Political Secretariat of the party and Yiannis Voulgarakis, coordinator of the Organizational Office of the party.