Intervention by Pambis Kyritsis, General Secretary of the WFTU, at the International Seminar held on the sidelines of the Nationwide Conference of PAME – April 3, 2026

First of all, I would like to thank PAME for making it possible for us to hold this meeting today, so that we can exchange valuable ideas and experiences.

And I must say that I consider it particularly significant that this meeting is taking place in a neighborhood that has become legendary for its struggles and where 200 communists heroically stood before the Nazi firing squad.

Dear comrades

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in Europe, the monopoly of global dominance by the U.S. and its NATO allies, as the older colleagues among us recall, was accompanied by the known grandiose declarations of a "new, dreamlike world order" where history ends and becomes a fairy tale. Today, of course, it is abundantly clear that it has done anything but bring us further away from war and nuclear catastrophe.

The real result of the negative shift in the global balance of power was that the ruling circles of capitalism became even more violent, more brutal, and more aggressive.

Imperialist wars, interventions, sanctions, and blockades are plaguing the world today, and in order to secure and expand their profits, the monopoly giants now prioritize the war economy.

Economic and social inequalities across the globe are growing exponentially. Entire populations are forced to leave their countries, either as refugees or as migrants, due to uncontrolled armed conflicts and conditions of economic and social deprivation.

International organizations and collective security mechanisms are being manipulated and exploited, and international law is being replaced by the law of the strong.

Fascism is once again finding favorable political, ideological, and social conditions and is rearing its head.

Temporary, precarious, uninsured and informal work is spreading and brutally undermining work with rights, as regulated by collective agreements.

The lives, safety, and health of workers are treated as costs that reduce profits.

Social achievements won through harsh struggles are being violently eroded by the raising of the retirement age and the privatization of social security and public health systems.

In the bleak picture of today's world, however, there is one encouraging and hopeful element: the fact that workers are not passively accepting this capitalist, anti-popular, and anti-worker attack. They are resisting, and under the guidance of class-oriented unions, millions of workers around the world are choosing the path of struggle to defend their rights.

Through militant mobilizations in every corner of the globe, the workers are demanding jobs with rights that ensure their modern needs are satisfied.

WFTU members and friends are at the forefront of these struggles everywhere. PAME is certainly one such militant union whose mobilizations and struggles in Greece have made us all proud.

As workers' resistance grows, so do police attacks and persecutions on union leaders, and violation on trade union freedoms-especially the right to strike-intensify. Employers and governments are attempting to manipulate workers' struggles, relying as always on the role of yellow unions and sellout union leaders.

Dear colleagues,

Under these conditions, our priority as a class-oriented labor movement is to work hard to build and strengthen the unions and to ensure their steadfast class-based and militant orientation, insisting on the principle that the working class is a class for itself and not to serve the interests and priorities of others.

We defend peace. We oppose an economy fueled by war. We fight for the dissolution of NATO and all military alliances, and for the defense of every people's right to choose their own path of economic and social development.

We stand against fascism, racism, and xenophobia.

We participate in the struggles for social rights, for education, health, social security, the environment, creative employment, and the right to intellectual and cultural development. For the rights of working women, youth, and immigrants.

For democratic rights and trade union freedoms.

We decisively oppose the line of compromise and concession within the labor movement that leads to its disempowerment and fosters bureaucratization, careerism, and even corruption within the trade union movement. And I believe we have illustrative recent examples in this area (see, for example, Vicentini)

Through the experiences of workers, trade unions, and social struggles, we link, in life and in practice, with the struggle to overthrow capitalism and the total abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

The source of the trade union movement's strength lies in organization, unity, and class consciousness. Its weapons are solidarity and internationalism.

These are also the pillars upon which our International, the WFTU bases its actions.

Respecting the time constraints and concluding my remarks here, I thank you once again for the opportunity to gather at this meeting and exchange views and assessments, and I wish PAME a successful congress and successful struggles.