Ongoing Mass Protests and Strikes in Greece Following
Devastating Train Tragedy

Greek People Seething with Anger

Athens, March 12, 2023

The Greek people, especially workers and youth, are organizing relentless actions to hold the country's government and the railway company Hellenic Train accountable for their responsibility in the train disaster that left 57 dead and at least 85 injured when two trains collided on February 28.

Shortly before midnight a passenger train with about 350 passengers on board and a freight train collided at high speed, when travelling in opposite directions between Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece's two largest cities. Even though this is a double track, the two trains were travelling in opposite directions on the same track. The tragedy occurred near the town of Larissa, in the central-eastern part of Greece. Among the 57 dead were a large number of students, who were returning from an extended weekend due to a public holiday in Greece.

When people heard the Prime Minister of Greece say, the day after the disaster, that it was "mainly due to a tragic human error," pointing the finger at the Larissa stationmaster, they immediately took action to condemn these words. They are demanding the resignation of the government and an end to the anti-social offensive with its measures such as privatization and austerity, which destroys human life by making humans things instead of humans with rights that must be guaranteed, which is the first responsibility of a modern society.

Almost daily demonstrations took place. The slogans We are the voice of the dead, Their profits, our deaths, It was a crime that was announced, Privatization kills and others resounded across the country. One of the most common slogans, Call me when you arrive, expresses the unbearable grief for the loss of loved ones and compatriots.

On March 8, hundreds of thousands of workers from all sectors participated in a national strike in several cities of Greece, with the participation of youth and people from all walks of life, declaring forcefully that there is no way the crime is going to be covered up by the authorities. The strike was extended until March 10. The unions representing the privatized railway company involved in the tragedy said they had been reporting incidents of malfunctioning signals on the track where the tragedy occurred for weeks and no action had been taken to address the problems.

Agrinio, March 8, 2023

Rhodes, March 8, 2023

On March 12, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Athens and Thessaloniki. In the capital, demonstrators occupied Syntagma Square, near the Parliament, with banners saying We will not forget, we will not forgive and We will be the voices of all the dead.

Police responded to the protests with tear gas and batons, but the mobilization did not slow.

The government has promised a transparent and impartial investigation into the causes of the tragedy, while the Greek people have spoken out about the causes and are demanding an accountability that must include an end to the anti-social offensive and a human-centred solution to the crisis that is affecting Greece.

One of the demands of the people is that the charges against the Larissa stationmaster and three other railroad employees be dropped. The charges include negligent homicide, which could result in life imprisonment if they are convicted. It was revealed that the stationmaster was appointed to the position only 40 days prior to the accident, after a job with the Department of Education. Media reports are saying he was left alone at the Larissa station for four days, without anyone to supervise him, when train traffic on that line was heavy due to the long weekend.

General elections were due to be held in the spring, but they are now scheduled to be held in July because of these events.

An Anti-Social Offensive that Destroys Human Lives

Volos, March 3, 2023

When the demonstrators chant the slogan Privatization kills they have in mind specific events that have been happening in Greece for many, many years and still have terrible consequences for the people.

Towards the end of the 2000s, in the name of tackling Greece's public debt, the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund dictated to Greece a destructive anti-social offensive made up of, among other things, multiple privatizations and austerity measures of all kinds against the workers and the people. Among the many measures, there have been drastic cuts in the minimum wage and in the wages of public sector workers, large cuts in the health budget, and cuts in public sector pension benefits. The living and working conditions of Greeks have been devastated, and public services mutilated. Unemployment has reached record levels, as has the suicide rate.

To this was added a wave of privatizations, always in the name of paying the government's debt. Greece has experienced the privatization of ports, airports, railroads, public buildings, public utilities providing water and electricity, etc. Greek workers and people have been fighting relentlessly against this squandering of public assets and anti-social austerity for the benefit of the financial oligarchy, and this struggle is clearly alive in the current mass actions for accountability in the face of the railway disaster.

Tens of thousands of workers and students flood all the streets in the centre of Athens March 16, 2023, marching to the Hellenic Train offices.

The private railway company Hellenic Train, which runs most of Greece's rail services, including the Athens-Thessaloniki line, and operates both freight and passenger trains, was created through privatization by the Greek state. In 2017, the state-owned TrainOSE was sold to the Italian state-owned railway company Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane. It changed its name to Hellenic Train in 2022.

Until 2008, TrainOSE belonged to the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), the state institution responsible for managing the railway infrastructure of the entire country. TrainOSE was responsible for all operational and management activities of the passenger and freight railway sector. In 2008, it became a public company independent of OSE. This was a prelude to its privatization. It was sold to the Italian company for 45 million euros, which was considered a paltry sum. The Greek state has subsidized Hellenic Train. In 2022, for example, it has committed to subsidizing Hellenic Train with 50 million euros per year for 10 years, under the hoax of helping it to operate unprofitable railroad lines and to provide safer services.

Thessaloniki, March 16, 2023

Right from the beginning of the period of austerity decreed by the financial oligarchy and its organizations, OSE made major cuts to its budget, which led to more layoffs and less hiring, less training, less maintenance of equipment and infrastructure, and less investment.

By the end of the 2000s, Greece's rail network had a workforce of more than 6,000 people. In 2017, after the privatization of TrainOSE and its sale to the Italian company, it is estimated that the workforce nationwide was around 750.

Rail workers who spoke to the media in the days following the disaster said that the remote monitoring and signalling systems, which control the flow of trains and guide workers driving the trains, had not been working properly for years, or were simply not put into operation.

The Larissa station, for example, has only a local signalling system that follows the trains for about five kilometres. This means that stationmasters have to communicate with each other and with workers driving the trains via radio to fill in the gaps, and signals are operated manually. The section where the trains collided is considered a "black hole." Remote monitoring and automated signalling systems had been designed but not yet implemented. A former Larissa stationmaster told the media that OSE had a remote monitoring system in place from 2007 to 2010 in the section where the disaster occurred, but that the system gradually broke up as lack of funding and staffing cuts led to poor maintenance of the equipment.

In 2014, the media reported, OSE commissioned an overhaul of the remote signalling and traffic control system that was to be completed in 2016. But nearly a decade later, the equipment has not been installed across the entire 2,500 kilometre rail network.

After shamefully invoking human error to justify the disaster, and under people's pressure, the Greek government had to say publicly that if the remote systems had been fully operational, "it would have been practically impossible for the accident to have happened."

These words have not appeased the people. Their actions and their demands are for accountability, which must include the complete reversal of the anti-social offensive and the building of a pro-social nation-building project based on an economy that serves the people and is controlled by the people. When demonstrators call for the resignation of the government, they are indicating that neo-liberal governments that do the bidding of the financial oligarchy are not fit to govern. The issue of political renewal to vest decision-making power in the people is raised in the most urgent manner by disasters such as this train tragedy that could have been entirely avoided.