Maritime workers, Teachers, Dockers, Metalworkers, Workers in Hotels, Tourism, Catering, delivery were on strike demanding Collective Contracts with better wages as well as Health and Safety regulations at work.

Teachers National Strike

The School Teachers National Strike took place against the Ministry of Education attempt to ban the strike through court order the declared the strike ILLEGAL.

Against these tactics the Teachers, with the solidarity of all unions, went on strike escalating it also the level of High schools.

In practice, against the Ministry’s intimidations and bans all first and second level education went on Strike with the teachers rally in Athens being one of the most massive of the last years.

Piraeus Port

Maritime workers, dockers and Metalworkers of the Shipyards held a massive strike which held a protest at the Maritime Ministry. After the Ministry refused to accept the workers’ demands the unions moved to OCCUPY the Ministry and extend their strike on October 24. Maritime workers decided to extend their strike to 48 hours on October 24-25.

Hotel-Tourism Workers

Major Hotels of Athens shut down during the National Strike of Hotel Tourism Workers who demand Collective Contract with better wages. The workers held massive picket lines in front of the hotels and marched to the Ministry of Labor and the Hotel Owners Association. Big Hotels had to announce inability to serve due to the strike.

PAME noted

A big strike river started in the morning, from the port of Piraeus and flooded Athens and other cities of the country. Maritime workers in the shipping industry, dockers in the port of Piraeus, metalworkers in the Shipbuilding Zone, thousands of hotel workers, teachers, kindergarten teachers and High school teachers all over Greece took the baton from the delivery riders and health workers. They are passing the baton to the next sectors that follow, such as the Construction workers, but again to the Riders, and together they are strengthening the front of the workers in the strike escalation to paralyze the country on November 20, in the NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE, with the slogan ‘Out of the war slaughterhouses, give money for wages, health and education‘ “.

“The government is worried and we will see to it that its worry becomes real fear from the rise of demands. Within a few days it has tried to criminalise and cancel decisions on three strike actions. Of train drivers demanding safety measures on rail transport, of mental health workers demanding that the bill to dismantle Health and Rehabilitation facilities be cancelled, and yesterday of teachers and kindergarten teachers demanding pay rises and modern infrastructure for themselves and their students. The government was left with the court decisions in hand! Everyone in the unions – everyone in the struggle. All in the GENERAL STRIKE on 20 November

The post GREECE: Great Strike Wave in Preparation for National General Strike first appeared on Labor Today.

The union got word of the weapons shipment beforehand and put out a call to other local unions to join them to help block their departure. In their call, the dock workers stated, “The dockers state it clearly, we will not stain our hands with the blood of the people”. According to the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), an organization similar to LUEL in Greece, the massive action lasted all night leading to the vessel leaving without the weapons.

LUEL stands in solidarity with the dock workers in Greece in their successful blockage of weapons aimed at continuing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. As stated earlier, we continue to call on all class-oriented trade unionists to stand up and organize their fellow workers and to raise their class consciousness to lead a new struggle against imperialist aggression sponsored by the U.S. government.

The post GREECE: Dock Workers Lead Successful Job Action to Prevent Arms Shipment Destined for Israel first appeared on Labor Today.

With the participation of 352 representatives representing 99 member associations and thousands of pensioners throughout the country, the three-day work of the 24th Congress of the IKA Pensioners Federation began today in Athens.

The Congress concludes the three-year cycle full of rich action of the pension movement, for the assertion of the just demands of pensioners based on their real needs.

The hundreds of representatives were even welcomed in a very warm atmosphere by the choir of PAME with an artistic program dedicated to their rich action.

George Perros addressed the work on behalf of the PAME Secretariat.

In the presentation presented on behalf of the outgoing administration of the Federation by its president, Municipality of Koumbouris, presented all-round the conditions in which the 2.5 million pensioners in our country survive. Conditions shaped by the anti-insurance laws of all governments since 2010 still, the consequences of the pandemic, but also the wave of precision that in the last three years consumes the most decaden pensions.

Making a brief review of the content of this attack, the suggestion noted: “Here is the deadly legislative provision that abolished the minimum pension and divided it into national and rewarding, the endless cuts in pensionable earnings, the cuts of our Gifts, EKAS, widow’s pensions, the increase in health reservations by 6% – even in the dead – the increase in our participation. The non-payment of the retrospectives of the 11-month 2015 – 2016, of the auxiliary and Gifts. The “personal dispute” of the Katrougalos law maintained by the current government, despite its declarations for its abolition. The grabbing of tens of billions from the insurance funds for the recapitalization of the banks. The debts of the large business groups to the insurance funds. Cuts in our pensions through precision, which breaks our income.”

In addition, it was stressed: “Any penniless “increasations” given by the government at the end of its previous term after thirteen years, is well below the rise in inflation and were not attributed to those pensioners who had a “personal difference”. No increase in supplementary pensions has ever been granted. For those of the pensioners who, the sum of their pensions passed some accounting limits, a solidarity contribution AKAGE AKAGEI has a solidarity contribution. The same is for the pensions that went through the tax limits.”

Faced with this situation that is getting worse every day, pensioners are preparing to give a militant response with the nationwide rally on November 22, rejecting the government propaganda which, as it was said, attempts “to fill our wallets with a slurry air, with lies and half-truths”. They made it clear that the Federation and the pension movement that is rallying in the framework of the Struggle Coordinague Committee, will continue to claim all that has been forcing them has been taken away and paid for them throughout their lives.

The post GREECE: Rich Three-Year Action, Power for New Struggles and Claims at 24th Pensioners Congress first appeared on Labor Today.

We are following your mobilisation at the gates of the LARKO factory and we admire your determination to defend your jobs, your wages and the living conditions of your families in your community; your struggle goes even further, it is a signal to all Greek workers that it is always necessary to resist unitedly against the attempts of the local bosses of the governments and the multinationals to deprive the workers and the territory of their wealth for the benefit of the capitalists.

Only with a strong subjectivity and determination to move forward is it possible to defeat the plans of the bosses and the European Union to dismantle strategic production, to relocate where labour costs are lowest and exploitation is highest.

In Italy we are suffering the same attack in many industrial areas and we are responding with strikes and mobilisations.

Dear LARKO workers, in your struggle you can count on our solidarity and closeness until victory.

Long live the international working class
Long live the class struggle
Long live the workers’ resistance

The post Italy: USB Sends Solidarity with the LARKO Workers on the Road to Victory first appeared on Labor Today.

The dismantling of the industries that are strategic for the country is one of the objectives that the European governments are pursuing in the logic of the international division of labour, which gives only some countries the possibility to maintain their own industrial and productive infrastructure, favours the monopolistic transnational companies and profoundly changes the face of the countries.

Fighting against the dismantling of LARKO, for the defence of its production, for the protection of the income of the families and the population living around the production site, means opposing the plans of the European capitalists and the European Union to reduce Greece to a country of services and tourism, without an industrial and productive fabric to give it autonomy and wealth. This is the same process that has started in other countries, such as the steel industry in Italy, which is wiping out historical production or literally handing it over to unscrupulous multinationals.

European workers, organised in militant, class-based unions, are at the gates of LARCO alongside the workers in struggle.

Together we are unbeatable.

The post WFTU-EUROF: With the LARKO Workers to Victory first appeared on Labor Today.

We denounce the policies aiming to privatize the port of Hamburg and we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters fighting for their working rights

The privatization of the port by the monopoly behemoth MSC, along with the investment of the monopoly of COSCO group in the same port, has only one goal, the increase of their profits against the interests and the needs of the dockworkers, but also of thousands of workers who depend on the work around the port.

We COSCO dockers at the port of Piraeus know very well what it means for big monopolies to steal our sweat. In the port of Piraeus, respectively, the same monopolies are active, COSCO, which owns the majority stake in the port, and MSC, which has a privileged contract for Pier I of the port. We know much more and we are living the result of these ‘big’ investments, which was the destruction of labour relations, flexibilization of working hours, intensification of work and crippled bodies and, on the other hand, huge profits for the employers.

Brother dockers of Hamburg, our own strike struggles in the port of Piraeus, against these monopolies, proved that there is no invincible enemy when dockers decide to take matters into their own hands.

These struggles were reinforced by the wave of solidarity from thousands of workers and dockers’ brothers and sisters from a number of countries. For with the weapon of solidarity we can break down every barrier and stand up for our own demands.

The struggles in a number of major ports prove that there are no “good” and “healthy” investments by monopolies whose only aim is more and more immense profits. They are deeply deluded, those who think that they can stop a workers’ river that is swelling daily the anger of workers who are currently groaning from the huge inflation, the great deadlocks throughout Europe, at the same time as governments are involving our countries in the war being waged in Ukraine

We express our solidarity. Intimidation and false dilemmas will not pass. We will win.

The post GREECE: Union of Dockers of COSCO in Piraeus Solidarity with Hamburg Dockers first appeared on Labor Today.

We join our voices with the working class of Greece, who demand the stop of the new anti-workers monstrosity of the government, and immediate measures to protect and support the people of Thessaly who were affected by floods and wildfires. 

The WFTU calls for the militant class-oriented trade unions to express their solidarity with the Greek working class and their struggles, which constitute an integral part of the unstoppable wave of struggles all over the globe. 

The post WFTU Solidarity Statement with the General Strike in Greece on 21st of September 2023  first appeared on Labor Today.

The ongoing attack in Greece is no different from the attack that all European governments are carrying out against the workers and people of the EU countries.

The era of austerity is rapidly returning, the European Commission’s continuous interest rate hikes are strangling families, especially those with mortgages and house rents to pay. Rises in the cost of basic necessities are rampant, leaving wages and salaries unable to make ends meet.

At the same time, millions are being spent on military support for Ukraine, taking it away from the needs of the working and grass-roots classes.

LONG LIVE THE GENERAL STRIKE ON 21 SEPTEMBER IN GREECE!
WE FIGHT WITH THE PEOPLE OF GREECE AND THE WORKERS OF GREECE!
DOWN WITH ARMS, UP WITH WAGES!

The post WFTU-EUROF supports the General Strike of the Greek Workers and PAME first appeared on Labor Today.

A massive solidarity mission of workers from the Unions of Athens took place on Sunday, September 17, to provide support and assistance in practice with the victims of the floods.

Early dawn of Sunday, hundreds of unionists and workers departed from Athens and went to the region of Thessaly, where many villages are still deep in mud and water.

The mission also transferred tons of material aid, drinking water, food and necessities for the affected. Upon arrival, the unionists were divided into the many villages and then went to homes, which had been destroyed by the floods and the people did not have any assistance in order to clean them.

The mission was also accompanied by a number of militant doctors, who went to the villages to provide medical assistance. Also, an important number of young workers and students participated in the mission, taking important lessons of organization and solidarity in practice.

The whole mission was met with gratitude and expressions of solidarity in villages that till today have not received any assistance from the official state.

In every neighborhood, emotional moments overflowed with locals saying: “thank you, only you help us, come back whenever you can”. After hours of work, the unions depart under with hugs and tears in their eyes.

The unions’ mission put once again in practice the motto:

ONLY THE PEOPLE WILL SAVE THE PEOPLE!

The post GREECE: Workers’ Massive Solidarity in Practice with the Victims of the Floods first appeared on Labor Today.