Today public sector workers in Greece have started what will be the first of many strikes, in response to a government austerity plan that includes a wage freeze, hiring freeze and layoffs.
Inside and outside of the the public sector, unemployment and underemployment is rife in Greece. The rich are able to avoid taxes with impunity; in fact, most Greeks are tax avoiders. The black economy thrives, representing 25.1% of the Greek GDP.
And over this potentially explosive situation--and I mean that literally--looms the spectre of an IMF takeover ("bailout").
All eyes in the EU are watching nervously....
More below the fold.
The university programme I teach on always has a large cohort of Greek students, so over the years I have learned more and more about the experiences of young would-be public-sector workers (teachers, mostly). Why do otherwise honest people in Greece dodge their taxes? It's pretty simple, really--corruption is pervasive, and the population pays the price in low wages and corrupt demands.
To give an example that I know well from my students, teaching jobs in Greece are doled out by a central education ministry. If you want a job, you have to either have ministry connections or pay a bribe. If you want a job in a desirable city instead of some backwards village, you'll have to pay quite a large bribe. The same holds true in many private sector occupations, not just for government jobs.
It's a bit like "key money" in New York City. Everyone knows the practice is illegal, but everyone expects the demand for a backhander and knows they must comply. The problems inherent in this go beyond disadvantaging job applicants who don't have enough money to pay the going rate. When you've paid for your job, it changes how you relate to the work itself: what should be an occupation is viewed as a sinecure.
To give an example from one of my former students, she returned to Greece wanting to put her new skills in working with autistic children into practice. Greece provides almost no services for disabled people so she struggled to find work. Finally she found employment in a private therapy programme, for which parents had to pay quite a bit. Her coworkers, who had paid for their jobs, spent their time chatting on their cellphones, doing their nails etc., seeing the children and their needs as an annoyance. Her efforts to set up an actual therapy programme, as opposed to a costly babysitting service, gained her little other than unbelieving stares. The coworkers were young women from wealthy families, and their attitude was very much, "I bought this job, you expect me to work too?"
There are dedicated and hardworking people, from teachers to garbage collectors to museum workers--in the Greek public sector but wages are depressingly low and your position is always vulnerable to being bought out from under you by a higher bidder. Everyone has personal knowledge of bosses on the take, who pad contracts for personal profit, sell company or departmental property on the black market, collect bribes for processing building permits (which means unsuitable or unstable buildings get built, because the builder paid), etc. Everyone knows that the corruption reaches the top of the government. No one trusts the government to supply a reliable service to the average person; everyone expects it to favour the rich and well-connected who can provide jobs, cash and favours. No one but a fool would voluntarily pay taxes in such a state.
To provide an idea of the scope of the issue, I'll quote from Transparency International:
More than 13% of Greeks resorted to giving "fakelakia" (or little envelopes) in 2008, paying an estimated €750 million [US $950 million] in bribes to public and private officials in 2008, €110 million [US $140 million] more than the previous year, according to the survey (Associated Press, AP).
Yiannis Mavris, head of the Public Issue, the polling firm commissioned by TI Greece to undertake the survey, noted that the amount equates to an "average of 1,450 euros [US $1,850] in bribes per family" (Kathimerini).
The majority of bribes, 60 percent of the total, are "related to doctor's fees, tax evasion and building permits," said Costas Bakouris, Chair of TI Greece.
Remember that Greece is one of Europe's poorest countries and you'll see how this state of affairs makes the average Greek see red when told that the country's financial crisis--caused by massive government borrowing that many believe ended up in the Swiss bank accounts of top government officials, and which certainly has not resulted in improved public services--is going to be sorted out by making their lives even more difficult. Remember that the bribery and corruption pervades the private sector as well, and is often the cause for government corruption. It's private companies who are the biggest players in bribing government officials, of course, despite the daily indignities and costs borne by average citizens. So it's no wonder that young people say "We won't pay for their crisis." I can hardly blame them.
The current government has announced an "anti-bribery" initiative. No one believes a word of it, it's about the 100th such initiative in recent years. Trust between the people and the government is at a very low point, not just on this issue but also on issues like lack of public services despite high "expenditure," police favouritism and violence, immigration issues (such as companies choosing to use superexploited illegal migrant workers instead of paying Greek citizens a decnt wage), erosion of civil rights and so on. And it's not an issue of just one political party, no one believes that a new government will solve the problem.
Everyone knows how Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities erupted in 2008. The unions were actually a target of those riots in many cases--rank-and-file workers occupied their own unions' offices to decry their lack of participation in the insurrection, and their lack of a vision beyond the current corrupt and unpleasant system. Everyone knows that nothing was resolved at that time. Though the rioting trickled to a halt, something else happened--popular assemblies held in the universities and many other locations, where young people and workers debated what kind of Greece they would like to see. For example, the City Hall of the Athens suburb Aghios Dimitrios was occupied and hundreds of citizens engaged in debate and discussion for. Events like this occurred all over Greece, and are actually far more important than the riots. Riots are flares of anger, they rarely accomplish much except perhaps focusing attention on an issue for a brief while. Discussion, debate and concrete plans for change, however, can change mindsets and lead to upheaval. To quote from the the young people who occupied Aghios Dimitrios in order to make a space for the people to think and talk, who responded to media accusations of "violence":
Violence is to work 40 years for crumbs and to wonder if you will ever retire.
Violence is the bonds, the stolen pensions, the securities fraud.
Violence is to be forced to take a housing loan that you will pay back through the nose.
Violence is the managerial right of the employer to fire you at will.
Violence is unemployment, temporary employment, 700 euros a monthii.
Violence is the "industrial accidents" because the bosses cut costs at the expense of worker safety.
Violence is to take psycho-medications and vitamins to withstand the exhaustive work schedule.
Violence is to be an immigrant, to live with the fear that you can be thrown out of the country at any time and to be in a state of constant insecurity.
Violence is to be simultaneously a wage worker, a housewife, and a mother.
Violence is to be worked to death and then to be told "smile, we are not asking that much of you."
The "solutions" currently being discussed involve either an EU bailout--which could take down the euro as Greece is not the only EU country with similar problems--or an IMF restructuring plan that will further impoverish the Greek population, as such plans always do. The young people I know find either option unacceptable--and they are not radical (I do know some Greek radicals as well... what they think about these ideas is unprintable!)
And so... all eyes on Greece. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, several recent entrants in Eastern Europe, and even Britain also have high levels of public indebtedness. Can an IMF "solution" be imposed on Greece, perhaps via military force? Will an EU bailout prove to be the unpalatable alternative? Or is there another possible direction?
Watch the situation with an eye to how it will be spun for an international office. I predict that you'll be sold scenes of "violence" meant to make you sympathetic to external controls. Consider instead the daily violence of life under a corrupt government, and the paucity of real alternatives on offer. Consider the likely role of speculation on the euro in the current crisis (yes, the worse things get, the more some speculators can profit by playing one currency off against another). Consider the aspirations and anger of the Greek people, especially the young and the unemployed, who have been highly politicised by the events of 2008/9.