Al. Tsipras: The government punishes workers and the unemployed

The President of SYRIZA Progressive Alliance, Alexis Tsipras, launched a fierce attack on the government of Mr. Mitsotakis for “failed neoliberal elections” against both the workers and the unemployed, in a meeting he had with the OAED Workers’ Federation.

“After dissolving the labor relations with the Hatzidakis law, which in fact abolishes the 8-hour period and releases the dismissals in the private sector, now it is now coming to form a framework that puts the responsibility for the unemployed for unemployment”, Mr. Tsipras noted during the presentation in the meeting with the employees of OAED, talking about “ideological obsession with neo-liberal choices that have not” walked “even in conditions of normalcy, development and prosperity”.

“We are now in a state of crisis and these extreme neoliberal choices are dangerous,” Tsipras said, referring to “the worst government in the worst timing and paralleling the neoliberal policies of the government with its choices and energy:” “We are paying for its ideological obsessions precisely, with the privatization of PPC in the midst of an energy crisis.”

“The government promotes the obligation of training over the right to work” noted the president of SYRIZA PS to conclude that “this is how it degrades OAED”.

“We do not support your demands only from a theoretical point of view, that is, our firm view that the right to work. We must use all the tools, because training is a tool that must be used,” he added, but called it “punishment.” the provision for the deletion of the unemployed from the registers of the Organization.

“So all this contributes to my initial conclusion that here we have a government with a very wild attitude towards the world of work, society,” said Mr. Tsipras, noting that this is happening at a time when we should have an effort of the state. to be able to contain this frightening sharpening of inequalities and of course the turmoil we will have from the effects of both war and rising inflation in the world of work. ”

He concluded that “for this, the workers will need to show through their struggles and demands that these neoliberal choices are outdated and dangerous”, calling on the world of work “to fight in order to reverse the process of disintegration. of labor relations and to protect labor “.

“Bill targeting the unemployed”

For his part, Giorgos Makrakis, President of the OAED Workers’ Federation, spoke of a bill that “puts against society” and that “comes to target the unemployed.”

“This bill is coming to put against the society. To target the unemployed. To delete, to remove the unemployed for two years from OAED. To forbid them to participate in unemployment benefits, in benefits, in any kind of information from a public “It is tragic,” said Mr. Makrakis, stressing that in this way “the state is moving away from any kind of social support”.

“He wants to get rid of the unemployed, to transfer the responsibility of unemployment to them, to operate autonomously and uncontrollably”, he added, while he pointed out that “this bill also changes the administrative structure of OAED, where it creates a government majority in the Board”. which, as he estimated, will have the result that “all decisions will always be adversely specialized, to the detriment of the unemployed and society”.

At the same time, Mr. Makrakis underlined that the said bill “does not give anything to the unemployed”, “does not give them more support, an extension of the unemployment benefit, an increase of the allowance in relation to the minimum wage, to expand the criteria for providing of the allowance “.

“All it introduces is training, training, training,” he said, adding that although “training is a useful tool but it can not be the main tool of employment.”

“Training does not create jobs, many times it even undermines them by over-training. It traps the unemployed in a process of continuing training with a small allowance. It has him there to train him and retrain him without ever leading him to a job “, he explained characteristically.

In addition, he raised the issue of reducing contributions to OAED, emphasizing that this reduces the “resources of the organization” resulting in reduced and “the organization’s ability to intervene in the unemployed.”

Concluding, the president of the OAED Employees’ Federation referred to the renaming of the organization to DYPA, claiming that it is a “demotion” of the organization to service and noting that “this administration has allocated a lot of money for OAED advertising, upgrading its logo OAED, for the social networks of OAED, and now it is changing it to DYPA without an obvious purpose “.