On August 28, public sector workers held a nationwide 24-hour strike, demonstrating in Athens and a number of other cities in response to the government's attempt to criminalize their trade union and political activities through the "reform" of disciplinary law.

The march of striking public sector workers in Athens ended outside the Parliament building, with slogans against state- sponsored terror, demanding money for public health and education, the hiring of new workers and wage increases. The workers expressed their complete opposition to the reactionary content of the bill and made it clear that ‘Struggles cannot be silenced. We will not compromise with medieval conditions, wars and exploitation.’

The KKE's support for the public sector workers' strike was conveyed by KKE MPs Christos Katsotis and Aphrodite Ktena. 

At the same time, the General Secretary of the KKE Central Committee, Dimitris Koutsoubas, referred to the bill on the new disciplinary law in the public sector while speaking in Parliament during the debate on the draft law, noting that "all governments, without exception, have always sought, in various ways, to control the civil service (...) because the state is the basic tool of the bourgeoisie, which is dominant today, to shield its power, impose its self-serving interests, and cloak its unjust class policy in the guise of a supposed “public interest”. With this bill, you want to silence the workers. You are targeting the healthiest among them, those who expose shortcomings, who demand solutions, who defend the rights of the people. You want to see them apathetic, resigned, puppets.

You are deluded if you believe that such regulations will stop the struggle of workers and civil servants, the exposure of your anti-popular policies, and the fight to overturn them. (...) You want them to be puppets of a state that is hostile to the people because it is only friendly to “investors” and “capitalists”. A state that reeks of decay and inhumanity.

However, there is a major contradiction that you are trying to address, but you will not succeed, you will not be able to address it, not only because civil servants themselves are affected by your unjust and inhumane policies, not only because of the intensification, the miserable wages in the 21st century we live in, the tax theft by all means, the dismantling of public health and education, the exorbitant cost of living, affect all of them directly, but also because every militant, civil servant, every honest worker wants and tries to stand on the right side, together with all the other popular strata who suffer from your anti-popular policies. That is why, despite your efforts to tighten control, discontent is growing and the fighting spirit is growing stronger. The balance of power in trade unions and public sector associations is shifting against you, that is, against the forces of government-controlled trade unionism, and in favour of class-conscious, militant forces and the candidates supported by the KKE.

After all, all these people are out on the streets today, and civil servants are striking with their mass organisations, their trade unions, against your despicable bill.

You may have the majority here in Parliament today to vote it through. But when you try to implement it, it is more than certain, and mark my words, that you will get a slap in the face! Because your terrorism will not succeed! You will find yourselves up against the workers, the unions, the entire Greek people, who will not bow their heads. And we will be there, together with the workers, to make your life difficult.

29.08.2025