Vol. 78/No. 20       May 26, 2014

“Our strike against the company’s proposed wage cuts of 40 percent began in October 2011 and ended in July 2012, when the riot police stormed the picket line and arrested the six pickets at the gate,” said Sophia Roditi, who was a leader of the spouses’ auxiliary during the strike.

“The courts claim workers were ‘psychologically terrorized’ by pickets at the plant gate, that pickets violated their right to go to work,” said Katsaros. “This is an attack on the right to picket.”

“Since the court ruling we have launched an appeal and our co-workers are free until then,” said Roditi. “We have received many statements of solidarity from trade unions throughout the country, as well as from other countries, including from the PEO union federation in Cyprus, unions in India, coal miners in northern Spain and elsewhere.”

“The convictions and heavy prison sentences of the 24 steelworkers is inspired by the dogma of ‘law and order’ of the government of the employers,” said a statement from the Union of Workers in Companies at the Athens International Airport. “This dogma was inaugurated in July of 2012 with the repression of the steelworkers’ strike by the riot police. It then continued with civil mobilizations [government back-to-work orders with threats of imprisonment] of public transport workers and longshoremen, repression of farmers, and the intermittent banning of other strikes and demonstrations. … The convictions are part of these other attacks designed to terrorize and criminalize workers’ struggles.”

Messages of solidarity can be sent to pame@pamehellas.gr
 
 
Related articles:
Demonstrations in Turkey respond to profit-driven slaughter of miners
Rockfall kills 2 miners in Ontario, where bosses keep pressing union
Report shows bosses, gov’t responsible for Texas blast
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home