‘The Executive Committee of ADEDY condemns in the strongest possible terms the public position expressed by government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis, who advocated granting unemployment benefit for a period not exceeding two months.

‘This statement cannot be treated as a simple personal opinion. It comes on top of a series of political choices aimed at further transferring resources to business groups and turning unemployment benefits into employment subsidies,’ the confederation said in a statement.

‘Unemployment is not a choice. It is not an individual responsibility. And it cannot be treated through punishment. Reducing the benefit period to two months would deprive thousands of unemployed people of the basic financial safety net they need until they find work again.

‘It would also create enormous pressure on unemployed people to accept any job, at any wage and under any conditions in order to secure the basic necessities of survival. And this does not concern only the unemployed. It concerns all workers,’ ADEDY said.

The statement added that ‘the more the protection of the unemployed is weakened, the greater the pressure on workers to accept lower wages, worse working conditions and greater employer arbitrariness’.

‘Weakening unemployment benefits, therefore, is not a policy that supports work. It is a mechanism for exerting downward pressure on labour.

‘The prepaid card, stricter conditions and restrictions, penalties and removals from the DYPA register, which have resulted in only a very small proportion of unemployed people receiving unemployment benefit, alongside the broader logic of steadily reducing state responsibility towards the unemployed, amount to a policy that is moving ever further away from meaningful social protection.’

ADEDY also stressed what it described as a ‘critical reality’:

‘Unemployment benefit is not a “gift” from the state. It is financed mainly by employees’ contributions and is a right directly linked to work and social security.

‘It cannot, therefore, be presented as a fiscal burden that must be limited to two months.’

ADEDY then set out workers’ demands:

  • ‘No to further cuts to social protection.
  • ‘No to punishing the unemployed.
  • ‘No to turning unemployment into a mechanism for blackmailing workers.’

It also called for:

  • ‘Decent and adequate unemployment benefits for the duration of unemployment, for all unemployed people.
  • ‘Meaningful protection for unemployed people and their families.
  • ‘Decent wages and stable jobs.
  • ‘Employment programmes with full social insurance and labour rights.’

‘The Executive Committee of ADEDY calls on trade unions, workers and unemployed people to respond decisively to any attempt to restrict social protection.

‘We will not accept a society in which unemployed people have two months of protection and are then left alone to face hardship. Unemployment benefit is a right.

‘We will not allow unemployment to be turned into a tool for suppressing the wages and rights of all workers,’ the statement concluded.

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