SYRIZA and the ‘crumb measures’ to deal with accuracy

By Niki Zorba

Impoverishment of Greek society and “crumbs”. This is the assessment in SYRIZA of what the Prime Minister announced yesterday and the ministers are specializing today, especially in terms of Energy and everyday life.

In fact, Mr. Tsipras, who continues his tours (currently in Thessaloniki) and his contacts with organizations on the way to the SYRIZA congress and the polls (whenever they are set up), insists on an attack strategy on the Government for the management of everyday life on all fronts.

Yesterday, for example, meeting the Federation of Greek bakers asked (again) to cap energy prices and reduction of VAT otherwise, according to him, will say the “bread bun” thousands of households. He supported the same during his meeting with the presidency of the Association of Municipal Water Supply Companies, where he spoke about the danger of “price chain explosions”, not only in electricity but also in mass-consumption water. At the heart of Koumoundourou, therefore, are energy costs and “scary scandal”. However, he also demanded a reduction of VAT on water to the minimum rate of 6%.

The above preceded the prime minister’s “sermon”, which, of course, did not bend in the slightest the intensity of the criticism of the government, which is concentrated in the Koumoundouria ode: Mr. Mitsotakis gives crumbs because he is oriented towards serving cartels and powerful, with excuse that there is not enough budget space.

Loss of purchasing power

SYRIZA’s request for an increase in the minimum wage to 800 euros is also stable, with the party’s Finance Minister Efi Ahtsioglou citing INE-GSEE data yesterday describing the loss of employees’ purchasing power.

“The government’s refusal to increase, as we have been asking for months, the increase of the minimum wage to 800 euros, leads to conditions of impoverishment of the workers and their families. The data published by INE-GSEE are revealing for the consequences of its choices. Mr. Mitsotaki and the continuous reduction of the purchasing power of the employees “said Ms. Ahtsioglou, quoting relevant data:

– The loss of purchasing power of the net minimum wage exceeded 14% in January 2022 compared to January 2021.

– The loss of purchasing power of the gross minimum wage amounted to 12.1%. The ridiculous increase of 2% in January reduced the loss of purchasing power by only 0.2%. That is, without this the loss would be 12.3%.

– In December the decrease in the purchasing power of the gross minimum wage was 10.4% and the net 12.1%.

The consequences of the accuracy and fixation of the minimum wage are even more painful for part-time or part-time workers.

In fact, the problem is growing, as inflation rose from 6.2% in January to 7.2% in February.