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{INTERVIEW CONDUCTED SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE JULY 5 REFERENDUM}
Life Under Austerity
A Greek fast-food worker on living under austerity, the difficulties
of worker organizing, and the meaning of Oxi.
by Erik Forman interviewing Eleni Eleftherios
Jacobin magazine, July 12 [interview conducted several days before
July 5 referendum]
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-syriza-referendum-debt-euro>
for in depth discussion of life under austerity and struggles on the
job go to full article
. . .
I started university in 2004. I finished ten years later because of
needing to work, but also because I got involved in the student
movement. The last government, the New Democrats, wanted to put
through legislation to privatize the university system. I was lucky
enough to be a member of the movement to stop this. We had two years
of occupations all over university faculties, and we won. University
education is still free in Greece because of this struggle. So it took
me ten years to graduate, but I don’t regret any of this — it made me
who I am today.
I got my degree in electrical engineering. About five years ago, there
was a big burst of interest in photovoltaic energy. Anyone with a
little land could install solar panels and make a few thousand euros a
year. It was a bubble, and it burst. The government reduced the price
they would pay people for electricity, and people don’t have the money
now to install solar panels because of the crisis.
So since graduating, I have sent out over one hundred CVs, and no one
has answered me. Half of the companies that I sent CVs to have closed
in the last year.
. . .
At work, me and my coworkers, and my bosses, are all going to vote no.
That’s a big deal. Most bosses of the fast-food sector may vote “no,”
because the EU wants to increase taxes on food service employers — and
Syriza has said no.
There are lots of small-time bosses in Syriza, running a business with
five to ten workers, and probably not paying them according to the
law. Syriza, like any governing party, wants to have the majority of
the people on its side — bosses, workers, soldiers, police, retirees,
everyone. It’s normal, if you’re a government, you want to have a
majority support. Syriza wants to protect workers and retirees, but
obviously they have to balance the interests of all these different
constituencies. This would make it hard for Syriza to do something
very radical.
It’s funny for me and my boss to discuss Syriza, and agree. But that’s
the point the battle is at right now. There is not a class struggle
against our bosses — the situation this week is Syriza and all of us
against the measures of the European Union. Of course, there are
differences between workers and bosses, but for now we are united on
the referendum.
. . .
For me, Oxi means that I don’t want another decrease of my salary the
next year, I don’t want another decrease in the pension, I don’t want
all these austerity measures the Europeans think the Greeks have to
take. For them, it’s just numbers, I don’t think they think of us as
real people. But in general, “no” means we don’t want another
reduction in our quality of life, of our dignity. We already have
almost nothing for salaries.
*What does voting “no” mean to most people? Do workers see it as
meaning going back to the drachma?*
I’m not sure that the majority of people like me — workers in my
sector — understand what it means. No one has tried to explain what it
would mean, or to create a Plan B, what would happen if we left the
eurozone. I think Syriza doesn’t want to leave the euro, or maybe just
hasn’t been able to figure out how it would work.
The majority of my coworkers know how the previous years were. We know
we can’t let the situation continue like the last five years. Even if
the situation will be hard for the next few years, we can stand it, if
we are going to get a more decent life, more dignity.
Not everyone is like my coworkers, though. I’m really afraid of what
is going to happen in this referendum. There was a lot of propaganda
from the media, from the ex-government, from Pasok, New Democracy, the
Europeans, they said that Greece will leave Europe if the referendum
passes. After that, they say the whole economic system will collapse,
we will have no public salaries for some months, no imports or imports
will be very expensive, or no medicines, that it will be like the
apocalypse, that we will somehow be a failed people.
Some people who will vote “yes,” they took advantage of the crisis —
big bosses and businessmen, people whose lives have not gotten worse,
and their kids. There will be people who will vote “yes” because they
are afraid of the other option.
If you are a normal thinking person, and you can see how you lived in
the last five years — as a worker, a retired person — it’s not
difficult to understand, we cannot live as slaves anymore. For me,
this referendum is this: to say “no” to this kind of politics, to not
live as slaves. It’s not like all our problems will be solved — I
don’t believe Syriza can solve all my problems — but it’s a good
start, to say we don’t want to live like this anymore.
As a citizen of this country, as a worker, I would like to have some
information about this Plan B, leaving the eurozone, but no one is
talking about this right now. Other left parties talk about this, but
Syriza doesn’t.
The fact is I am poor now with the euro, I will be poor with the
drachma too, but I think that with a “no,” this will be a start toward
reclaiming our dignity. There is no dignity in our lives. But no
matter what happens on July 5, the class differences will still exist
— I will be a worker, my bosses will be my bosses — and the struggle
will continue.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Erik Forman was active in unionization campaigns in the fast-food
industry as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Eleni
Eleftherios works in the fast-food industry in Thessaloniki, Greece.
She is active in the Union of Waiters and Cooks of Thessaloniki and
Macedonia.
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