Workers World is in complete solidarity with the working class of Greece, who held a powerful one-day general strike on Feb. 28. Millions of workers, along with students and small businesspeople, filled the streets. At least 200 cities and towns were hit with strike actions, shutting the whole country down.

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons, clubbed strikers and made arrests. More than 80 people were detained, and a number of workers were injured. Clashes erupted as demonstrators repeatedly tried to breach barricades and storm the parliament in Athens, Greece’s capital. Some protesters hurled Molotov cocktails and makeshift explosives at police. 

We demand the immediate release of all detainees and that no charges be filed against any of them.

This showdown with the state was called on the second anniversary of a crash between a freight train and a passenger train in the area of Tempe near the Greek city of Larissa that killed 57 people. Most of the dead were young university students; among them were also 11 railroad workers. 

Parents of the students who were killed spoke at strike rallies in multiple cities.

Greek workers remain angry over the failure of the state to punish the parties responsible for the accident or to reverse the long-standing policies of austerity and neoliberalism that have impoverished the Greek masses and allowed the collapse of the infrastructure.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) states on its website: “Dozens of complaints by trade unionists from the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) and all the railway unions had warned of the risk of a major accident. … As PAME points out, today at least 2,000 workers are lacking for the safe operation of the railway, adding that ‘the real causes of the conflict and the horror are the ‘rails of profit’ that crash our lives for the interests of the exploiters of the people! These rails must be torn up!’” (inter.kke.gr, Feb. 28)

The strike was supported by the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), which represents private sector workers, and the Supreme Administration of Greek Civil Servants Trade Union (ADEDY), which represents public sector workers.

The main slogan of the strike was: “Their profits or our lives.” That is what it boils down to for the working class — not only in Greece but everywhere that capitalism remains the dominant mode of production. Workers are literally fighting for their lives.

The working class demonstrated its power on Feb. 28 in Greece. The working class is the motor force of history. It is the only class that can put an end to the deadly system of capitalist wage slavery.

Workers World urges the workers of the world in the Global North and the Global South to extend solidarity to the workers in Greece. The workers’ struggles know no borders.

Long live the resistance of the workers of Greece! Solidarity forever!