Factory Workers of "Viomihaniki Metalleytiki" solidarity group
Dear friends and comrades,
We are organizing a big workers “CARAVAN of STRUGGLE & SOLIDARITY” which will take place from 12 Octomber until 15 Octomber in Greece.
We would like to invite you to our first stop of our tour at THESSALONIKI, GREECE on FRIDAY 12 Octomber. If you are coming, we can arrange travel tickets and accomodation. You will show up at Ivanofio basketball arena.
Thanks a lot in advance.
We are sending you in english two scripts according to the occupied factory of “Vio.Me.” at Thessaloniki, Greece.
“You can’t? We can!” Workers at Mining Industry factory in Northern Greece vote for and prepare for self-management of their factory – victory to the workers!
Concerning the struggle at VIOMIHANIKI METALLEYTIKI (Mining Industry) in Thessaloniki
The administration of VIOMIHANIKI METALLEYTIKI, a subsidiary of Filkeram-Johnson, has abandoned the factory since May 2011, along with its workers. In response, the workers of the factory abstain from work (epishesi ergasias: the legal right of workers to abstain from work should their employer delay their payment) since September 2011. The Workers Union at Viomihaniki Metalleutiki has organised 40 workers all of which are, to date (one year after the closure of the factory) active, taking shifts at the factory to ensure that no equipment is removed by the administration or stolen. All the workers also participate in the General Assemblies.
The proposal of the Union in order to escape this dead end – as the Administration has stated the factory will not reopen, due to the lack of funds – is for the factory to go into workers control, a proposal voted by 98% of the workers at the General Assembly. More specifically they ask for the factory to be passed on to the workers and for all the members of the Administration and workers sitting in the administrative council to resign, with no claims from the future workers’ self-management of the factory.
In regard to the initial capital, which is necessary for the operation of the factory, the proposal of the workers is for the Greek Manpower Employment Organization (OAED) to pay them in advance the sums they are already entitled to after becoming redundant.
Finally, the workers at Viomihaniki Metalleutiki demand the introduction of legal status for co-operative enterprises, in order for their own and for future initiatives to be legally covered.
In the struggle of the workers of Viomihaniki Metalleutiki, apart from the self-evident value that we see in every workers’ struggle and every workers’ demand, we also recognise an additional value, which comprises exactly of this proposal of self-management. We believe that the occupation and the re-operation of factories and corporations by their workers is the only realistic alternative proposal in face of the ever-increasing exploitation of the working class. The self-organisation of factories that close down is the only proposal that has the force to mobilise the working class – which, living under the constant threat of unemployment, cannot see ways in which it can resist.
We know that the difficulties we shall face in the struggle for the self-management of the factory are many, since state and capital will fiercely stand against it – as a possible victory shall create a precedent and and example for any other struggle in the country. Yet the question of whose hands the production lies in becomes a question of life and death for a working class pushed into degradation. For this reason, the workers’ struggles orientated in this direction and the forces standing in solidarity to these struggles should be prepared to clash with state and the administration in order to materialise the occupation of the means of production and the workers’ self-management.
We call for every union, organisation and worker to stand in solidarity to the struggle of the workers of VIOMIHANIKI METALLEYTIKI and to actively support the workers both financially and politically.
Movement for Workers’ Emancipation and Self-Organisation
http://federacion-salonica.blogspot.gr/
Here is another document, even more recent, about our struggle.
THE FACTORIES BELONG TO THE WORKERS
It is already the 17th month that the factory “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” (subsidiary of Philkeram-Johnson) in Thessaloniki, Greece, remains shut. The workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” are in an important struggle, fighting under difficult conditions, unpaid from May 2011 and existing under suspension of works with great difficulty of survival, to keep a very dynamic industry of construction materials alive, and the workers with dignity and pride against unemployment, poverty and pauperisation.
The workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” are struggling to take the factory from capital’s grasp and give it into the hands of the workers!
They struggle to materialise that we the workers can live without bosses!
By their side are hundreds of workers and unemployed, either organised in collectivities or not, who support the struggle of the union of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” politically, economically and morally, by organising initiatives, conferences and solidarity events in many cities across Greece, and also abroad.
In a period where the majority of society is under attack, sacrifice to profit and the rescue of the “national economy” of the banks and industrialists, the example of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki”, that is given by a union that functions with processes of direct democracy, is moving and inspiring to more people by the minute. This is because the struggle of the workers for self-management of the factory, for complete workers’ control over the means of production and living, finds increasingly more supporters in a conjuncture where the companies that go out of business and massive unemployment are daily news in every corner of Greece.
THIS IS WHY THE STRUGGLE OF “VIOMICHANIKI METALLEUTIKI” MUST BECOME THE STRUGGLE OF ALL THE WORKERS, OF WHOLE THE ATTACKED SOCIETY.
The part of the Open Solidarity Initiative is to reinforce the struggle of the union of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki”, by strengthening the informative and solidarity campaign, making sure that the calling of the workers reaches every workplace and every neighbourhood. For this we organise campaigns together with the union from the Industrial Zone to the centre of Thessaloniki.
LET’S SET OUT ON THE ROAD OF STRUGGLE
In the era of one-way capitalism and the continuous attack by the government and the troika, who threaten to crush the needs and rights of millions of workers and unemployed, we set forth on the modern just social struggles, making one more step to our -so necessary today- counter-attack to overthrow capitalism.
We strengthen the voice of the workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” who call out:
YOU CAN’T? WE CAN!!!
Open Solidarity Initiative
for support of the struggle of the workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki”
e-mail: protbiometal@gmail.com, union’s website: http://biom-metal.blogspot.gr/
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Anyone who wants to express solidarity to the workers can communicate by mail with us @ reinformnl@gmail.com .We will soon try to organise a solidarity action.
Reinform.
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