This past week marked the holding of the 39th Congress of ADEDY, the third-level trade union organization of the public sector, that is, the confederation that unites all public sector unions, such as those of teachers, professors, health professionals, doctors, cleaning and service workers in local government (municipalities and regions), public universities, various ministries, and others.
It should be noted that two confederations exists in Greece: one for public sector unions (ADEDY) and one for private sector unions (GSEE), which include all unions, regardless of the political beliefs of the workers who make them up. However, within the unions, both in the public and private sectors, there is fierce ideological and political conflict over the direction of each union, the positions it takes, and the demands it makes. This conflict is also reflected in the votes for the election of union leaders.
This was also the case at the 39th ADEDY Congress, where 650 delegates partisipated, representing 36 sectoral federations – members of ADEDY, as well as 1,040 primary unions and over 250,000 civil servants, who took part in their union elections and in the process of selecting delegates for the 39th ADEDY Congress.
At this congress, DAS, the electoral list supported by the KKE and consisting of trade unionists who rally in the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME), took first place, receiving the support of 168 delegates (25.57%) and electing 22 seats in the new administration (up from 134 votes, 21.3%, and 18 seats in 2022). For the first time in the 100-year history of ADEDY, the list supporting the KKE took first place.
In second place was the list of DAKE, aligned with the ruling right-wing party of New Democracy in Greece, which for the last 10 years was the leading force among the country’s civil servants and has now fallen to 21.77%. Next came the list of the social democratic PASOK party with 17.5%, marking a decline in support since the previous congress, followed by the forces of the social democratic parties SYRIZA and New Left running two joint lists, which received 12.3% and 9.7% respectively.
In this way, the country’s civil servants sent a message of opposition to the policies that impoverish civil servants and the entire population, intensify the repression of popular mobilizations, promote increasingly reactionary changes in the anti-popular bourgeois state, and entangle our country and our people in imperialist wars.
In the relevant statement by PAME, it is noted, among other things, that “The outcome of the Congress is a vivid expression of the intensification of class struggles for a life worthy of us, based on the enormous wealth produced and the possibilities offered by modern scientific achievements. It constitutes recognition by workers of the daily efforts of DAS trade unionists to revitalize the Federations and unions, to free themselves from the aspirations of the state, and to enter the struggle with renewed vigour.
It fills us with an even greater sense of responsibility to strengthen a militant, anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly counteroffensive within the organized movement of civil servants. We will continue tirelessly and more decisively, together with all workers, to be at the forefront of organizing struggle in every area of the public sector, in coordination with private sector workers, toiling farmers, and poor self-employed in the cities, together with our children in schools and universities. Based on our current needs, we will continue to fight for the regroupment of the labour and popular movement. The dilemma was and remains: their profits or our lives.
Everyone in the unions! Everyone in the struggle!”
