“Today, 130 years since May Day in Athens and the claim of 8 hours as a mature need since then, we are faced with the directives of the E.U. and the corresponding anti-labor legislation that all governments and the current one have passed, in order to abolish the 8-hour shift, to make the working time flexible, to establish the 13-hour, 6-day and 7-day work. Laws and directives that found and find the support of employers and government trade unionists who serve this policy”.
This is what the Labor Center of Patras notes in its announcement, inviting everyone to participate in the May Day strike action at 10.30 am.
Continuing the announcement, the following are mentioned: “From Chicago in 1886 to May Day in Athens in 1894, from May 1936 in Thessaloniki to May Day 1944 with the heroic sacrifice of 200 in Kaisariani, the working class has written indelibly ink of her blood on the most brilliant pages of class struggle, organized struggle and assertion, which no state and employer terrorism and repression can stop.
At the same time that this year marks 75 years since the establishment of the NATO imperialist killing machine and 25 years since the dismemberment of Yugoslavia by NATO and the EU, the workers and the popular strata continue to experience the consequences of the tension of the imperialist wars and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. They are experiencing the consequences of Greece’s ever deeper involvement in this imperialist merry-go-round, of its increasingly strong ties with NATO and the EU, for the benefit of shipowners, industrialists, businessmen and their interests in the region.
And while the concern about the generalization of the war in our neighborhood grows stronger, in our country workers experience poverty and exploitation, forced to live with wages reduced by 25% compared to 2010, in fact it has made basic survival goods unattainable . At the same time, business groups are making record profits, relying on broken workers’ rights, the lack of health and safety measures in workplaces that have led to hundreds of our colleagues’ deaths.
This policy is implemented in all EU countries. it is the reason why workers are taking to the streets en masse and fighting for their modern needs. They are hopeful struggles, they show the enormous power of the organized working class.
The strike mobilizations on February 28 and April 17, against the efforts of the GSEE and ADEDY leaders who fought and undermined these strikes, sent a message of hope by strengthening the slogan “their profits, or our lives”!
We continue even more determinedly!
We mobilize our unions, our own weapon against employers and governments! With optimism we celebrate May 1st, our big day!
We are participating en masse on Friday, April 26 at 8:00 pm in Psilalonia, in the great concert dedicated to Labor Day with Maria Faradouri and Fotini Velesiotou, organized by the EK of Patras together with the Pension Associations EFKA (IKA) and OAEE.
On Sunday, April 28, together with the Labor Center of Amaliada, we are holding a large tour and discussion with Greek and immigrant land workers in the area of Nea Manolada and Western Achaia, in the strawberry fields of anger where thousands of our worker brothers work day in and day out with starvation wages and living inside nylon to hoard a handful of businessmen with the tolerance of government and embassies.
We are moving forward on Monday, April 29 at 9:00 a.m. in a protest at the Labor Inspectorate (N. E. O. Patron 12) demanding immediate health and safety measures, protecting the lives of workers in all workplaces, immediate intensity of controls by the competent services so that we don’t mourn almost every day and a dead colleague of ours as has been happening lately. We demand the intensity of controls so that employers pay the Easter gift to all employees properly and do not demand that the employees return it with threats, as is done in many cases.
We support and participate on Tuesday, April 30 at 8:00 pm in the event of the Union of Builders for May Day, which will conclude with the screening of the documentary “Fellow heroic builders”.
HAPPY MAY 1st! We continue even more determined to:
The demand for better working and living conditions, for SSE with increases in wages and expansion of rights.
• The immediate abolition of the anti-labor laws that crush the 8-hour shift and criminalize union activity, prohibit the right to strike. We fight for 7 hours – 5 days – 35 hours as the development of science and technology allows.
• Immediate measures against accuracy.
• Immediate measures for the health and safety of workers at work. Intensity of controls by the competent state bodies.
• Disengagement from imperialist designs and war conflicts.
• Solidarity with the people of Palestine, in the just and cruel struggle they are fighting against the killer state of Israel, which is slaughtering them with the backs of NATO and the EU.
For the working class around the world, May Day is a beacon of implacable class struggle. The ND government’s attempt to abolish the May Day strike, based on a SYRIZA law, and to turn it into a festive holiday, will not pass.
EVERYONE at the May Day strike, at 10:30am at the Labor Center of Patras”.
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