All images via screenshots and the KKE
On February 28, 2024, workers across Greece participated in a 24-hour general strike in a powerful expression of workers’ discontent. It was one of the largest strikes the country had seen in years.
The massive action saw taxis on a 48-hour strike, the National Railway and the Attica/Peloponnese Suburban Railway shut down for 24 hours, air traffic controllers at all Greek airports and port employees and ferries in Piraeus, Rafina, and Lavrion (Attica) walk out and public transit in Athens halted.
Demonstrations related to the strike took place across the country including in Athens and Thessaloniki.
According to the Communist Party of Greece (KKE): The demands of the workers and the people against high prices, for an increase in wages, for collective labour agreements, for public and free health and education, met with the popular demand that the crime in Tempe, which led to the death of 57 people exactly one year ago, should not be forgotten, and that all criminal and political responsibilities should be attributed to those responsible for the crime.
In the huge strike rally in Athens, tens of thousands of people marched towards the Parliament and then towards the headquarters of the “Hellenic Train” company, carrying the banners of trade unions, unions of the self-employed, student unions, women’s associations and other mass organizations. Similarly mass were the strike rallies in dozens of other cities around the country.
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, attended the mass strike rally in the city of Larissa, where he stated the following among other things:
“Today we struggle demanding that the crime of Tempe not be covered up, that all political and criminal responsibilities that led to the collision, the explosion and the loss of 57 innocent souls, most of them young children, be attributed.
We struggle for increases in wages and pensions, for collective labour agreements, for full labour rights, for full-time, stable, permanent employment for all public and private sector workers. (…) Workers, farmers, self-employed tradesmen, university students and school studentsstand united in this struggle. We continue with a nationwide front that challenges the dominant policy, for radical changes in the Greek society, for the meeting of all the workers’ demands, for the way to be paved for real progress and freedom for the workers and our people”.
