Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

As Feminist Initiative for the elimination of Violence Against women, we state our opposition to the coup d’etat of the government, that is the closure of public Radio/Television, ERT, and the dismissal of 2.700 workers all over Greece.

We participate in the struggle for revocation of this decision with our daily presence in the occupied building and we fight together with the workers of ERT.

Extreme sexism and underestimation of the women in the various daily programmes emitted in the private channels is not to be found in the ERT programmes, which are in general more qualitative. We cannot claim that sexism is absent from ERT, but it is less intense, while in cases there have been sexist images or behaviours, we have protested with positive results. This character as well as the possibility for social intervention/control is a integral element of every public Tv and Radio, despite any weaknesses or omissions.

If the new company planned by the government is finally created, the private criteria that will be in place will undermine every possibility for democratic function and in the last analysis all these positive assets.

We want to stress also that the majority of workers in ERT are women, with wages equal to the men’s colleagues, as provided by the law. Of course here we have also the gender segregation in skills and positions, which opens the gap of wages inequality, which in total is smaller. Also the career in responsibility positions is not equal, but in better condition than in other public services or public companies.

In the framework of our participation in the Alter Summit we are in co-ordination with many movements in Greece and Europe for the defense of the commons. Already in Europe, organisations participating in Alter Summit are playing a protagonistic role in solidarity to the struggle for ERT...

The improvement of public services can be achieved only in an opposite course than the one followed by the government, where democratic orientation and social control will be the main elements. This is the road that should be followd for ERT, which often functions as a conveyor of government policies and propaganda. The government –present and previous- have every respolnsibility for mis-management and economic misconducts or scandals, since it is the government that appoints the managers, ad it is responsible for all illegality which it now evokes, and thus is inappropriate to restructure public Radio/Television.

Athens, 14-6-2013