[Marxism] Greeks protest acid attack on union organizer

[Jeff <meisner@xxxxxxxxx>]

Local Greek ex-pats (not me!) have translated this flier for international 
attention. Yesterday there was a large protest (10000) in Athens and in 
other cities in support of the victim Konstantina Kouneva, and as part of 
the campaign in support of super-exploited "leased workers" as described in 
this flier. Although there is a list of union support at the bottom, the 
General Syndicalist Union for all the workers of Greece (GSEE) notably 
refused support to these demos, as the rise of autonomous unions clearly 
threatens their power. Although not well translated, "First-order Trade 
Unions" are described as "trade unions controlled directly by assemblies of 
their members-workers and/or by boards elected directly by their members," 
which have been involved in organizing this sector.

A properly formatted version of this translation (which cannot be sent 
through this list) is posted at:
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~meisner/kouneva.doc

-----------------------------------------------------------


First-order* Trade Unions' Initiative 
for Solidarity with Konstantina Kouneva 
and the End of the Slave trade - "leasing" - in the public and private sector. 
Konstantina you are not alone! 
        The bosses' terrorism will not pass. 

DEMONSTRATION AND MARCH TO THE MINISTRY OF LABOR
THURSDAY 22/01/09, 18.00, PROPILAIA, ATHENS

On the night of December the 22nd, 2008, our fellow worker Konstantina 
Kouneva, secretary of the Attica Union of Cleaners and Home Working 
Personnel, became a victim of a murderous attack as she was returning home 
from work. Two thugs threw vitriol acid on her face, and violently forced 
her to drink an amount of the acid. 
As a result, Konstantina Kouneva is hospitalized in a critical condition in 
the Intensive Care Unit of Evangelismos Hospital, having suffered serious 
damage to her face and permanent damage to her vital organs, as well as 
having lost sight in one eye.  Her very life remains in danger.... 
This murderous attack against Konstantina Kouneva was an act of revenge, 
because of her union activism and her participation in the struggle for the 
defense of the rights of her fellow workers. 

The events speak for themselves. On November the 26th, 2008 the fourth 
"three party meeting" between employers, employees and the state, took place 
in the Greek Ministry of Labor. The meeting concerned changes in the 
employment contracts of the "on loan employees" of the cleaner-crews who 
work for the State Underground Railways of Athens (HSAP).The changes in the 
contracts were made by the contractor Oikonomakis and his company OIKOMET. 
According to the directive 182/1985, all cleaning employees that work less 
than 6 hours lose their right to a monthly allowance for working in 
unhealthy and dangerous conditions. This is the reason why OIKOMET altered 
the contracts of its employees, thereby violating the National Collective 
Labor Agreement of the sector, decreasing their working hours from 6 hour 
contracts to 51/2 hour contracts, with a 1/2 hour break... thus, altering 
the pension and social security contributions that the employers had to pay 
for their employees. Needless to say, this downgrading of the employees' 
status, from the category "unhealthy and dangerous work", to the category of 
"general" pension employers contributions, saved thousands of Euros for the 
employers. 
During the "three party meeting", the employer's side was represented not 
only by the company's lawyer, but also by the employer's stooge "union" that 
was created for the occasion and which includes only personnel supervisors 
and human resources directors of the company. Outside the building of the 
Ministry of Employment -in close resemblance to the 1963 murder of the left 
wing member of parliament, Grigoris Lambrakis- a counter demonstration was 
held by 80 members of this stooge "union" (organised by the employers). In a 
mob fashion, the bullies shouted abuse and threats, mostly targeting our 
co-worker Konstantina Kouneva, who is the general secretary of the Attica 
Trade Union of Cleaners and Home Working Personnel, accusing her of 
supposedly wanting to close down the OIKOMET company...
Kontsantina;  a woman , a mother of an underage child, a worker and an 
immigrant, is a real syndicalist fighting for her working rights. 
Since 2000, Konstantina and the Attika Trade Union of Cleaners and Home 
Working Personnel, insist on and continue to expose  the reality of abuse 
and exploitation entailed by the contracting practices that are being used 
especially by the public services in Greece, in cooperation with and for the 
profitability of the managers of the public utilities and state hospitals, 
under the cover of the trade union bureaucracy. 
They revealed and condemned all the violations of workers' rights that are 
committed by the contractors and bosses:
* Although the state already pays two or three times the value of their 
services, the contracting companies falsify the hours that their employees 
work, and at the same time, do not even properly pay their workers for the 
hours they actually worked.   
* They force the cleaners -in their majority migrant female workers- to sign 
voluntary resignation letters at the time they are hired; in this way, 
whenever they wish to fire a cleaner they already have a fake resignation 
letter in their hands. Furthermore, the contractors force the workers to 
sign blank documents that certify fictitious salaries and subsidies which 
they never actually received.
* They pay their employees wages significantly lower than the basic level 
indicated in the National Collective Labor Agreement of their sector. 
(Instead, they pay them wages equivalent to 500 Euros per month for 8 hours 
per day, 400 Euros per month for 6 hours per day, and 150 to 180 Euros per 
month for 3 hours per day, without any supplement for extra time worked, 
weekends, holidays or night shifts.)
* They do not pay the obligatory pension contributions to the pension-funds 
of their employees, or if they do, they do not pay the amounts which, due to 
the nature of the job, are required for the categories of unhealthy and 
dangerous employment; these practices result in denying the rights of 
thousands of workers in this industry to establish their pension rights.
* They blackmail and threaten their workers with lay-offs or black-lists in 
order to make them bow to such practices as mentioned above. 
Konstantina and the Attica Trade Union of Cleaners and Home Working 
Personnel revealed to the public this slave trade, these working conditions 
resembling the Middle Ages, and although in their struggle they received no 
support from the Trade Union Council bureaucracy, they continue the fight! 
They reveal that the bosses in the cleaning industry establish stooge trade 
unions.
They reveal to the regulating and inspector authorities and to the 
Institution of Social Security the gross violation of laws by the contractor 
employers. 
They have repeatedly called the Labor Inspector Authorities to the work 
places, in order to reveal and put an end to the employers' gross violations 
of the legal rights of their employees. 
They took legal action and stood with the women workers fighting for their 
rights. 
(However, in demanding information that has to do with working conditions 
and working relations of their fellow employees, the inspecting state 
authorities illegally refuse to supply such information citing the private 
information act, claiming that such data is irrelevant etc...)
Konstantina and the Attica Trade Union of Cleaners and Home Working 
Personnel, in their struggle, demand the obvious: 
* the abolition of the legal framework which allows the public services and 
private companies to  establish slave-trading contracts and working conditions
* the abolition of law 2956/2001, written by a Greek Socialist Party (PASOK) 
Minister of Employment, which in its article 20 "baptizes" the slave trade 
contracting companies as "companies of temporary work", and which calls the 
bullying practices of the contractor bosses, as "intermediation for the 
securing of employment". 
* the payment of the cleaning workers from the funds of the administrating 
departments of the public services and not from the contractors.
* the annulment of directive 182 of 1985, which specifies that employees 
working 6 hours or less in a cleaning job are exempted from the social 
contribution and pension categories applying to  unhealthy and dangerous 
employment.
* the control of the contractors by the public authorities and companies 
that use their services, in order to insure that salaries as well as the 
required social security and pension contributions will be paid.
* the application of directive 182/ 85, which clearly states that personnel 
working in cleaning hospitals, irrespective of how many hours they work, 
must be paid on the basis of performing unhealthy and dangerous employment.
The only response of the management of public services organizations to 
these requests can be summed up in the following phrase: "We allocate the 
job that is needed to be done to the contractors' companies, and pay them 
for this. The way they fulfill their obligations, what type of personnel 
they use, and how they conduct their business, are issues that do not 
concern us. They are the contractors' issues for which we are not 
responsible". 

The trade union movement received after many decades a murderous attack from 
the bosses' hit men...
The humanitarian announcements of condemnation of the murderous attack from 
the Trade Union Co-federations and the National Trade Union Councils are 
insufficient. Instead, it is necessary for the Trade Unions to call for 
strike actions and organize fighting initiatives. 
The trade Unions and Co-federations of the public sector should stop 
tolerating the function of labor-hiring companies in their work sectors. 
(The very fact that the premises of the Trade Union Council of Greece are 
being cleaned by a contractor company is a serious issue!) 
The Trade Union Council of Greece and the Trade Union Center of Athens must 
finally condemn and expose the stooge "trade union" that has been 
established by the bosses of the contractors' company OIKOMET, for what it 
really is. 

What is happening in the cleaning sector due to the presence of the 
contractor companies, is just one of many examples of contemporary slave 
trade. It is not, by any means, an individual or isolated practice. On the 
contrary, the modern slave trade of renting employees, the legalization of 
the employers' crimes, and so-called flexible working hours, are practices 
promoted by the economic and political system, affecting all working sectors 
in Greece and all over the world. All these practices constitute an integral 
part of the attack on labor rights, aiming to reverse the achievements of 
years of struggle by the Trade Union movement and to question our very right 
to trade union organizing and workplace action. Furthermore, it reveals what 
the employers and the Greek government want to impose on the people.

This is the reason why the murderous attack against Konstantina concerns all 
of us. 
The time has come for a working class movement which will not stay silent in 
response to such crimes; a movement that will struggle to the end for the 
abolition of the legal framework permitting flexible work and the slave 
trade by the contractors' companies; for a decent wage, social care and 
pension.
The Trade Unions have to break their silence. They must show their 
solidarity with actions and actively support the struggle against the slave 
trade by the contractors' companies. Especially Trade Unions and Trade Union 
Federations which are active in workplaces where rented workers are 
employed, should demand the immediate ending of this unacceptable practice. 
Instead they should demand the immediate employment and appointment of the 
personnel. All the functions or necessities covered by contractors should 
return to the responsibility of the public services, the public 
organizations and companies, and payment for those personnel should be 
received directly from them.
Finally, it is the demand of the working class movement that Konstantina be 
offered a full pension as well as free medical treatment. 
* We have to support and contribute to the heroic struggle that the Attica 
Trade Union of Cleaners and Home Working Personnel is carrying out. It is 
our duty to Konstantina to help all the women workers in cleaning to join 
the Attica Trade Union of Cleaners and Home Working Personnel. 
* We demand the identification and prosecution of the individuals who 
carried out this murderous attack, as well as those who envisioned, planned 
and encouraged them to carry it out.  
* Down with all labor-hiring companies. 
* Not a single fellow worker on  "lease". 


Attica Trade Union of Cleaners and Home Working Personnel
Association of Teachers working in Private Schools
Association of Employees in Book and Paper Companies
Panhellenic Union of Waged Technicians
Union of Employees in publications "Ellinika Grammata"
Union of Employees in Speedtransport and Postal Companies in Attiki
Union of Employees in Vodafone
Union of Employees in National Post Offices
Union of Waiters and Cooks
Association of Professors of Keratsini- Perama
Association of Professors of Nikaia - Piraeus
Association of Professors "Athens"
First Association of Professors in Athens
Association of Professors "Parthenon"
Association of Professors "Aristotle"
Association of Professors "K. Sotiriou"
Association of Professors of Nea Smurni
Association of Teachers of Siros-Tinos-Mikonos
1st ELME of Athens
3rd  ELME of Cyclades
ELME of South Athens
ELME of Ano Liosia- Zefuri- Fylis
Association of Doctors in Private Hospitals of Athens-Piraeus
Union of Employees in Attiko Hospital
Union of Employees in Erithros Stavros Hospital
Union of Employees in Social Services of Private Sectors
Five-member committee of Nikea Hospital
Union of Employees in Press Shops in Athens Airport
Association of the Personnel in Air Transportations
Union of Employees in Mass Media in Lesvos
Association of Employees in Private Schools in         North Greece
Union of Employees and Technicians in Greek Defense Systems in Aigio
Association of Employees in PROTON Insurance Company
Panhellenic Union of the National Radio and Television Personnel
Union of Employees in National Theater
Association of the teachers in Marasleio School
Panhellenic Union of Energy "Worker's Solidarity"
Association of Employees in the Offices of the Greek Defense Systems
Association of Temporary Teaching Personnel in Technical Universities in Patra
Union of Cleaning Personnel in Municipality of Patra
Association D.E.Y.A. Patra
Union of Employees in Security in Peloponnisos - Ipiros- Sterea - Ionio Islands
Union of Hotel Employees in Patra and in Ahaia
Union of Hotel Employees in Porto Rio
Union of Employees of Electromechanics in Kimi
Union of Technicians in Public Energy Company in Patra
Union of Employees in AVEK
Union of Waiters in Ahaia
Union of Employees in Natural Gas Company of Attiki
Union of Engineers in Public Organisations in Attiki
Union of Employees in National Theater of Northern Greece
Union of Employees in the Municipality of Virona
Union of Employees in the Municipality of Nea Ionia
Union of Employees in the Municipality of Renti
Union of Employees in the National Bank of Greece
Panhellenic Union of Unemployed Teachers and Professors

This initiative is open to all first-order unions that wish to support the 
struggle against the contemporary slave trade.

First-order* Trade Unions' Initiative 
for Solidarity with Konstantina Kouneva 
for the End of the Slave Trade - "leasing" - in the public and private sector. 



*trade unions controlled directly by assemblies of their members-workers 
and/or by boards elected directly by their members.


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