Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

First a representative of Woman Against the Debt, a network started 18 months ago to support woman experiencing the worst aspects of the crisis. Women are often the first to lose their jobs, and often have to care Care Le concept de « care work » (travail de soin) fait référence à un ensemble de pratiques matérielles et psychologiques destinées à apporter une réponse concrète aux besoins des autres et d’une communauté (dont des écosystèmes). On préfère le concept de care à celui de travail « domestique » ou de « reproduction » car il intègre les dimensions émotionnelles et psychologiques (charge mentale, affection, soutien), et il ne se limite pas aux aspects « privés » et gratuit en englobant également les activités rémunérées nécessaires à la reproduction de la vie humaine. for kids whose kindergartens have closed down, and for the ill whose healthcare has been removed.

A trip to the doctor or hospital now costs €25 – and climbing. Having a baby sets you back €800 – double that if you need a caesarian. Without the money, you’re told to ‘go home and do the best you can’. Free access to contraception and abortion have been removed. Vaccinations for children have virtually stopped. The big pharmaceutical companies now refuse to sell medicines to the hospitals.

We spoke to a pharmacist who said every day she came across people who couldn’t afford their medication, and many who take a vastly reduced dosage to make it last longer. She told us: “In this corner of Europe, the situation is very bad – it’s tragic. People die through lack of access to basic health services.”

When hospitals refuse healthcare to impoverished women, Women Against the Debt persuade or humiliate hospitals to admit women without payment. They also work with newly formed self-help clinics, set-up by healthcare workers operating in a voluntary capacity, to get free information to young, impoverished women about family planning.

Meanwhile, Thessoloniki’s public services are facing the threat of privatisation – under Troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, which together impose austerity measures through the conditions tied to loans to countries in difficulty.

IMF : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html instructions to start selling off public assets to help pay the debt. This represents is a further attempt to suck wealth from the public, in order to bolster the profits of the private sector.

Initiative 136 is an anti-privatisation campaign which has studied countries like Bolivia which have defeated water privatisation. The Initiative has now established cooperatives across the city to try to raise the money to buy the water utility – offering a non-transferable share Share A unit of ownership interest in a corporation or financial asset, representing one part of the total capital stock. Its owner (a shareholder) is entitled to receive an equal distribution of any profits distributed (a dividend) and to attend shareholder meetings. to everyone in the community which would translate into a democratic say over the operations of the water utility.

According to the campaign, this forms part of a bigger picture of “people taking control of their own lives.” The campaign believes it isn’t enough to prevent privatisation, the water needs to be “put into the hands of the community”. In this sense the crisis has become an opportunity – albeit one which has caused huge suffering – to start building a more democratic society.

Finally, we met workers from a factory which had been abandoned by its owners as a result of the crisis. The workers have waged a 21-month campaign – without pay and thus enduring extreme poverty – to take control of the factory and start operating it as a cooperative.

The factory is a cause-celebrity in Southern Europe – and Voime (the name of the factory) is well-known. Like the anti-privatisation initiative, the workers don’t see their struggle as an isolated fight to regain their livelihood; “it’s an attempt to regain control of our lives across the country”.