Insult to injury: Jacobin Magazine's brand of political ethics

Costas Lapavitsas's (SYRIZA) interview "Greece: Phase Two", published by Jacobin has this to say on KKE:

So you dismiss the argument that said a minority government was possible? 

That’s just nonsense. In the circumstances, nothing else was feasible. The real blame lies with the Communist Party (KKE), of course. Which, once again, has not measured up to the demands of history, and has chosen a line of complete opposition and complete hostility to Syriza and what it stands for, and therefore it forced Syriza to make this government with ANEL.

In a staggeringly cynical and shameless move, Jacobin accompanies the article and the quote in question with an image (above) from the 28 March 2014 anti-NATO KKE rally held in Thessaloniki. The rally was convened at 7 p.m on the occasion of the 15 years from the imperialist war on Yugoslavia, an event during which SYRIZA had kept the usual "forked tongue" approach it always has in NATO interventions (the blog will provide evidence of this in the next few posts).

The image was taken from photographer Giannis Papanikos' website; the characteristic yellow lettering of KKE is visible on a couple of the flags, despite possible image manipulation.

SYRIZA and Golden Dawn: A Parliamentary Chronicle of what the "Global Left" doesn't want you to know

On March 4, 2015, prominent US intellectual Noam Chomsky was reported to have stated in an interview with Democracy Now that the reaction of European elites to SYRIZA, i.e, the pre-emption of its salutary social-democratic function as a means of saving capitalism from itself, "could lead to a right-wing response [...] The alternative to SYRIZA might be Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi party."

It wasn't in any way an original formulation of the "Greek dilemma" in terms of a choice between the "carrot" and the "stick", between EU fiscal support for the Social Democratic desire to use a possible slackening of finance capital's stranglehold on the masses in order to curtail working-class militancy and the harsher, far less "attractive" alternative of holding the working class in its place through formal class dictatorship -- fascism. SYRIZA MP, Finance Minister and Anglo media darling Yanis Varoufakis had already put things in the same way in his Press conference with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble a month before, on February 5:

SYRIZA "dissidence"

Much has been the hype, internationally and (far more grotesquely) nationally about supposed "dissidence" within SYRIZA regarding the Eurogroup agreement. First of all, it would be good to establish once and for all what the balance of formally expressed forces is within the party: in the elections held in 2013 for the constitution of SYRIZA's Central Commitee, the forces involved were as follows:

1. The Unity Ballot (that is to say, the "SYRIZA establishment"), 67.61%, 135 members of the CC

2. The "Left Platform" (the alleged "SYRIZA Left Wing", led by Panagiotis Lafazanis -- pictured above winking at us while voting in the aforementioned party elections; this is also the formation of the Jacobin's exceedingly verbose Stathis Kouvelakis) 30.15%, 60 members of the CC

3. The "Non-Allied", 1.03%, 2 members of the CC

4. The Communist Tendency (of which a gigantic amount of hype globally), 0. 74%, 2 members of the CC

5. The "Members' Intervention", 0.27%, 1 member of the CC

6. The "Unity Intervention", 0.21%, 0 members of the CC.

Greek Steel Workers Strike - Greece on the verge of revolution? Think again...

Greek Steel Workers Strike - Greece on the verge of revolution? Think again...

Date: Tue, 2012-07-31 16:11

Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)

Undoubtedly, Greece is the country that has suffered the most during this last and totally unrestrained wave of liberalization and fierce devaluation of labour which has been sweeping Europe since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. At the same time there are a multitude of political anti-systemic oppositional forces which have managed to maintain a living presence in Greek society.

What this looks like is everything from a widespread network of anarchist/autonomous groups of various flavours, growing in numbers after the 2008 December riots to the network for Inclusive Democracy across to the Greek Communist Party. The Greek Communist Party are one of the few European communist parties not seduced by social-democratic Sirens, still adhering to the communist principles (at least at the rhetorical level) and with a consistent presence in the Parliament. One would be tempted to assume that this situation would turn Greece into a hotbed of revolutionary activity. In fact, there are many, especially among the left-wing intellectuals from abroad, who seem all too willing to make this assumption, thereby creating an image of Greece going through a pre-revolutionary stage.

Of course this is untrue, and it makes no difference to the people who suffer whilst academics dream of revolutions on foreign horizons. What is even more striking though is that none of the above mentioned groups has gathered much attention during this imaginary creation of the “Greek People’s Republic”. Instead, it is SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) that has been hailed as the possible saviour of Europe, a conglomerate of leftist groups for which the term Left would apply only by a very loose interpretation of the word whereas the term Radical only serves as an marketing trick, showing once again the growing gap between signifiers and significants in this post-modern world of crumbling meanings.

Just before the second round of elections in June, Slavoj Zizek was invited to give a talk at a SYRIZA meeting and as was expected, he charmed his audience by employing all his usual rhetorical devices. When asked about the Communist Party of Greece, he replied that these people are dead but they don’t know it yet. Accusing a pro-Soviet communist party of exhibiting the stiffness of a dead body might of course sound like preaching to the converted. However, doing so among a bunch of social democrats who have failed to sense the stinking odour of the rotting body of Social Democracy sounds like a twisted Monty Python joke.

Back to basics

A few kilometres away from this SYRIZA meeting, in an industrial suburb of the greater area of Athens, about 400 steel workers were into the seventh month of their strike. These are workers who have to work in dangerous conditions such as amongst molten streams of steel which sometimes might find its way on their bodies. If they are lucky, they might get away with some burns. If they are not, they simply die. They were running one of the longest strikes in modern Greek history which mainstream media had carefully chosen not to cover. Needless to say, Slavoj didn’t bother to pay them a visit.

Before the start of the financial crisis, the Greek Steel Industry was considered to be one of the largest Greek industries in terms of sales among those that were not in the stock exchange market. Comprising of two sites, one in Athens and another one in Thessaly, a region about 300 kilometres to the north of Athens, it had a revenue of more than €320 million, employing almost 1000 workers. Its actual production had risen during the past 20 years to about 1 million tons of steel per year and it kept rising at the time that the strike began.

In October 2011 the company announced to the workers that it faced financial difficulties, i.e. a significant reduction of sales since the start of the crisis and presented them with a choice. In order to cut down costs, they would either have to accept a five-hour workday, accompanied by a reduction of their wages by 40% or 180 of them would be fired. In order to see this dilemma in its true perspective, it is worth noting that the monthly wage starts at 900 Euro for a newly hired, inexperienced worker and goes up to no more than 1500 for a worker with decades of experience, working overtime, during weekends and on night-shifts.

Faced with this dilemma, the 400 workers at the Athens site decided to respond in their own way and after a general assembly they voted for a strike which nobody believed would last that long. The atrophied major unions (GSEE for those working in the private sector and ADEDY for those in the public sector) have made a habit of calling for strikes which almost always have a more or less symbolic character, lasting no more than 24 or 48 hours. However, this time the workers assembly showed an unusual determination which of course forced the company management to take the offensive and soon afterwards the first layoffs were announced. 38 people were initially fired, a practice that the managers kept escalating as the workers showed no signs of submission. At the time that this article is being written, this number has risen to 120 fired workers. Besides these sackings, the company has made use of a number of other aggressive tactics, from using strike-breakers to split the workers to arresting the president of their assembly and even bringing the case to court which ruled the strike as illegal. A host of establishment journalists didn't miss the chance to follow suit once again, demanding that the government be firm in enforcing the law and bring things back to normality so that the company's problems could be discussed in a "rational", "responsible" and "civilized" way. At present, the company does not seem willing to step back from its initial decision, even though a number of workers no longer wish to be hired again and the rest of them have suggested to the company that only 40 of them should be hired immediately and the rest can return to their jobs gradually.

A walk among the ruins of the unions

The current stalemate situation deserves a closer look since, in certain respects, it epitomizes all the contradictions that plague the unions, their structure and the means they employ for their struggle (assuming of course that their goal is to fight for the interests of the workers, an assumption not at all self-evident). What has allowed the steel workers to keep their fight going for more than 8 months now is a substantial wave of solidarity and (material and financial) support that they have received from various groups and individuals, even from other countries. On the other hand, the company has managed to survive the strike due to the fact that the workers' representatives at the Thessaly site chose to answer the dilemma posed by the company's management by accepting lower wages and reduced work hours. Anyone can guess the outcome of this struggle, in case there's no further escalation on the part of the workers. The company, considered to be the spearhead of changes in the Industry which attempt to lower labour costs, will probably have the final say.

An important difference between the two sites: in Thessaly, the workers society is led by groups affiliated with the ruling parties in Greece (New Democracy and PASOK) whereas in Athens its president is a member of PAME, a syndicalist organization with links to the Greek Communist Party. Therefore, an obvious explanation for the division among the workers at the two sites is that the ones in Thessaly are represented by corrupt unionists with interests identified more with those of their bosses than those of the workers they are supposed to represent whereas the ones in Athens have managed to attain a pure working class consciousness. Of course that is an oversimplified analysis, the truth is however, much more complex. A few words about the structure of the unions in Greece are necessary at this point. Compared to the charade of the general elections in the so-called states of representative democracy, the situation in the unions, over which the workers should in theory have more control, has come to a level of almost surrealist absurdity. In the last round of elections in Greece, a country with traditionally high percentages of participation in elections, almost 40% of the electorate chose not to vote at all (not including all the immigrants without any electoral rights). According to a study, 52% of the Greek workers say that workers assemblies do not even exist at their workplaces. It is estimated that almost 75% of the workers do not belong to any unions at all. As if this number did not sound scary enough, try adding the hundreds of thousands of unemployed. And then add all the illegally employed. What about the temporarily employed?

On top of this, the overwhelming majority (more than 90% !!) of the members of the executive boards of GSEE and ADEDY work for the public sector whose workers are protected by more safety nets (e.g. until very recently public servants could not be fired). What is more important though is that this striking imbalance reflects the very structure of the Greek state itself (and therefore Greek capitalism) which has been built upon the selective “donation” of benefits among several special interest groups within the public sector resembling in certain respects the tribal divisions in countries of the periphery where capitalism has been forcefully imposed upon heterogeneous populations. Needless to say, this is a poisonous situation that gives rise to fierce conflicts by essentially turning these dependent groups into beggars of the great Father figure of the state and competitors for its benefits.

Another factor that has alienated workers from the unions over the past decades can be traced to their internal organization. As has already been mentioned, the very first division among workers is introduced by the existence of two completely separate high-level organizations, one for the public servants and another one for those working at the private sector. These so-called third-level organizations cover the entire geographical area in Greece and are led by their respective boards whose members are elected among several groups with links to the established political parties, a process not dissimilar to the one for the parliamentary elections. Below them, at the second level, there exist the confederations, divided according to geographical area or type of work and at the base of this hierarchical structure one finds the first-level societies, attached usually to a specific business or company. As is evident, this structure essentially reproduces the same pathological (and pathetic) situation to be found in the centre of the political scene by introducing multiple vertical and horizontal dividing lines of mediation and representation.

The above mentioned communist PAME, established in 1999, has tried to create a separate and parallel structure, condemning the leaders of GSEE and ADEDY as traitors of the working class. At the same time however, it participates in all of their proceedings and elections without ever attempting to completely disengage itself from them whereas being very selective about whom it chooses to support. Closely following the steps of the Greek Communist Party, it keeps its distance from every movement and struggle over which it has failed to gain absolute dominance while being very efficient at containing whatever it leads at very manageable levels.

The net result of all these machinations amounts to nothing more than the appropriation of workers’ power by the professional unionists at the top into leadership positions who have no problem becoming full-time professional politicians after exhausting all the options of climbing up the Union ladder. It’s sad to think that this happened through a slow and gradual process of self-mutilation which a large part of the working class experienced in an almost masochistic daze of perverted pleasure, accompanied by the administration of the “morphine” of loans, mortgages and the dream of someday moving up to a middle-class status, back in the not so distant days of easy money. This works so long as a significant part of those at the bottom of the hierarchy could maintain a lifestyle of reliable (i.e. zombified) consumers by employing the usual exorcism rituals of condemning the union elites as corrupt before going to the next electronics store to buy the latest gadget. Once again, the most vulnerable part of the working class finds itself in a state of paralyzing division and almost complete helplessness. In this perspective, one may have a better understanding of the deadlock situation of the steel workers, a Gordian knot becoming tighter and tighter each time they (or anyone else in position similar to theirs) attempt to pull on the rope.

In search of alternatives

From our point of view, it is obvious that the raison d’être of the unions, as they are today, has ceased to exist. Now that the European capitalist forces attempt to restructure the European economic zone in order to make it more competitive and catch up with the rest of the existing or emerging economic superpowers, they have no intention of making any compromises when it comes to lowering labour costs. For them, within their own political framework, it is a matter of life or death. The time of the welfare state is over and no return to obsolete forms of Keynesianism or Social Democracy is possible. The Unions, as distributors of “benefits” to and pacifiers of the workers, will probably discover, sooner or later, that they have not only become useless for the workers but that the ruling elites as well have no use for them.

It is therefore imperative that new forms of resistance are developed before it is too late (if it isn’t already). Without going into a very thorough analysis, there are certain steps that the workers can take, if they are to have any chance of surviving the onslaught that is about to hit them (what we’ve seen is just foreplay). No matter how hard or unthinkable this might seem, the workers can make their voices be heard and their presence be felt again in a truly antagonistic manner only if they burn the bridges than still link them with the existing unions and start building their own organizations again, irrespective of whether this move might be declared as illegal. Organizations without all these levels of mediation and at the same time less divided which should accommodate not only those with permanent jobs but also the masses of the unemployed or precariously employed. Organizations that should respond not only reactively and defensively, with strikes and negotiations, but also proactively, by building international (if possible, given the international nature of the current “war”) networks of (material) support that should be automatically activated in cases like those of the steel workers who had to depend on the goodwill of their supporters.

Furthermore, if one understands the current situation as we do, i.e. that the time of compromises is over, then the next logical step is to move towards more radical defence tactics and even take the offensive. We may find one such example in Greece again. Since May 2011, the management of the Industrial Mining company in Thessaloniki (about 500 kilometres north of Athens) has stopped paying its employees, again due to financial difficulties. After months of negotiations and unemployment, the general assembly of the workers reached the following decision. The workers should take over the company and start running it on their own by dividing the shares equally among themselves. No wonder the Confederation of Industry Workers was hostile to this action. You guessed right. It is led by representatives affiliated with the ruling parties.

It is no secret that this kind of workers cooperatives may very well turn into fully assimilated capitalist companies if they try to move towards production on a mass scale while struggling to survive in the existing environment. However, we need to start discovering those few threads that can loosen up the Gordian knot while preparing the sword that will cut through it.

UPDATE 1: After this article was written, the few news media that cover the strike of the steel workers have reported that the company’s management is taking all the necessary legal steps to completely shut down the Athens site.

UPDATE 2: In the early morning hours of July 20, the riot police was called in to force the strikers out of the factory so that it can resume its operation. A week after, the workers’ assembly announced that the strike was over. Let’s hope that this was only the beginning and that this strike will wake up from their deep slumber those parts of the oppressed whose dreams have not yet become serene, quiet and peaceful.

Is the Greek Steelworkers' strike "over"? And for whom?

It might be best to being with a terminological issue, which pertains to the reactions towrds the decision to suspend the strike during the 20th General Convention of the Steelworkers' Union. The word is "suspension", not "termination" of the strike, as has already become the customary moniker, with an automatism that is disturbing. It is "suspension" because the workers' demands have not been met, and hence no "termination" can properly be declared. It is important that class-conscious comrades writing on the issue note the difference between these two words.

It is equally important, and immediately connected to this issue, that comrades continue to show interest in the Greek Steelworks and to inform others about the situation there. Because of course, working-class struggles are not soccer games where two teams meet, arrive at a result, and then hit the showers before they go home. The workers who returned to the factory, in the midst of the police clubs of the Riot Police and the microphones of zombie journalists in the employers' service, have also returned to an environment where harsh and health-treatening labor (see reports on radioactive residue in the Volos plant) is being accompanied by the concerted efforts of employment to move the situation to the next step: the isolation of the workers' leaders from the main body and the dissolution of the Steelworks Union. As long as a class-conscious, combative, non-employer bound Union exists, there also exists a permanent threat for Manesis, who knows far better than most that the fire of the Steelworks is not out yet. And it is perfectly natural for him to do all he can to put that fire out.

Neither for Manesis himself, then, nor for the steelworkers, is the class struggle out because the strike has been suspended. And it would be ethically and politically inadmissible for us to behave towards this struggle like the journalists of the mass media, who pick an issue to get hysterical with one day and forget all about it the next. Hence, we will continue to cover the issue of the Greek Steelworks, always from the standpoint of the labor movement, for as long as the factory continues to produce something more than steel: political education and militant unity for the working class.

As for the permanent victims of spectacle, those who have obviously not understood that the strike was not a soccer match that finishes after 90 minutes or 273 days (and have not grasped the fact that labor struggles are not related to the temporality of media perceptions that have come to inform the pseudo-revolutionary pose "I want a solution and I want it now"), they can continue preoccupying themselves with what the idle do: undertake "analyses" of strategy and tactics on the coffee-shop table, along with drinks and snacks. We will have nothing to do with such an understanding of the ethical and political tasks of supporting the struggles of the working class.

Originally published: Lenin Reloaded, 1 August 2012

Translated by: Lenin Reloaded

Anti-labor ranting and the distortion of reality (The Radical)

Anti-labor ranting...

Appearing on NET* channel yesterday morning, the deputy minister of Education and Culture, K. Tzavaras, went on an anti-labor rant about what is going on in Halyvourgia**. Without a sign of basic respect for workers who have been defending their rights and the dignity of the entire working class for the last nine months, the minister stated the following:

“It is a matter of protecting the free will of the worker (…) For the same reasons that the right to strike has to be protected – and the right to strike is a right that is deployed under certain legal conditions – in the same sense the state has to protect the right of someone who wants to work (…) The use of the Riot Police is an issue decided upon by the one who has the monopoly of state violence (…) We have to understand the state as a guardian of rights; when there is social resistance , the law has to be applied. And sometimes the means of enforcing the law include the Riot Police (…) Order in the operation of a productive unit (i.e. in Halyvourgia) where a number of people had to work was threatened (…) No one has the right to occupy a business because the benefit of the worker coincides with a certain boundary, which is keeping the business in operation. When a business is closed work automatically stops (…) Seeking to destroy a business and the businessman is destructive behaviour. This is not syndicalism, this is barbarity; against this barbarity every democratic state has to take action (…)”!

* New Greek TV – A state-owned TV station
** “Elliniki Halyvourgia”, translated as “Greek Steelworks”
The Radical, 25 July 2012

… And the distortion of reality

Slander, along with the conscious distortion of reality, are fundamental attributes of the political personnel of the bosses. That's why there is no reason to tell the minister that the right to strike has been secured with the blood of the workers. The right to work is questioned every day by the government, which supports any available Manesis* in firing workers by the hundreds, violently extracting millions from those placed outside production as a result of the permanent attempt of the capital to dump the burdens of its crisis on those that it exploits. Nor is there reason to remind the minister that the state is not “neutral” but serves the class which is in power, in this case the bourgeoisie. Doesn't the minister know that one of the workers' demands was the right to work of those Manesis fired? Because, if anything, it is shamelessness for the minister to say what he says for the right to work accusing the steelworkers that they deny it; to who, indeed? To themselves?

There is no reason to answer because the minister knows all of that. And we are not noting these facts because we were surprised by his fury against the workers. We didn't expect anything else. We note them to tell the employees in the Ministry of Culture that the government doesn't see only the Steelworkers this way, but every human being engaged in struggle. So they can know that the only answer to the crushing down of their life is class solidarity and unity--an organised popular counter-attack.

*Manesis is the owner of “Elliniki Halyvourgia” (Greek Steelworks)

The Radical, 25 July 2012

Translated by: Yannis Tembelis
Translation edited by: Lenin Reloaded

Yannis R.-Concerning the Greek Steelworks

Originally published in Greek: Lenin Reloaded, 21 July 2012

Yannis R.-Concerning the Greek Steelworks

Translated by Effie A.

The 24-hour repeated strikes at the factory of Greek Steelworks (Halyvourgia) began on 1 November 2011, when the employer asked the workers to accept either the layoffs of 180 workers or a five-hour workday and a 40% pay cut (the workers could not easily complement their income by working elsewhere for 3 hours per day). Meanwhile, production was on the rise:

-2009: 194,600 tonnes

- 2010: 231,000 tonnes, with the foundry closed down for two months because a worker had died in a work accident

- 2011 (until October): 266,000 tonnes

The company owns a second factory in Volos where the measures for reduced working hours and wages were accepted, but were not implemented as the entire production was transferred to the Volos plant after the strike in Aspropyrgos.

On 3 February 2012, the company obtained a license to construct a big private port next to the steel plant in Aspropyrgos, indicating there were plans to increase production [Source]

The strike and the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME)

It was never denied that the union leader, Giorgos Sifonios, is a member of PAME. However, his co-worker and striker Haris Manolis, also an active member of the Union, is a supporter of ANTARSYA. The strike has been given support by different ideological and political currents. Besides, information coming from the workers indicates that until recently when the strike started, PAME was poorly represented at the Union. In any event, the strike has been decided by the Union, which has the support of PAME but is not controlled by PAME.

The Union’s decisions

The Union’s decisions to initiate and continue the strike have been made by the Union’s General Assembly that can be attended by all the workers of Greek Steelworks. Actually, after the strike was declared ‘illegal’ by the court, a new vote was carried out with 204 workers voting for and 42 against the strike. This means that after 9 exhausting months, the vast majority of the workers voted to continue the strike [Source].

Material and financial support for the strike

Obviously, the strikers of Halyvourgia and their families have been given material and financial support during the strike. They would not be able to survive otherwise, as the majority has no other source of income beyond their wages which were not particularly high in the past to allow for significant savings.

Many people have shown solidarity with the strikers by supporting them financially (by depositing funds to the Union’s bank account) or by offering food supplies, etc. In addition to PAME, many other unions, associations and people’s assemblies have collected money and foodstuffs or organized concerts or other events to support the strikers. Anyone can support the strike without involving PAME or any other trade union.

The legal status of the strike

On 5 June 2012, seven months after it started, the strike was declared illegal by the Magistrate of the Court of First Instance in Athens, because the decision to begin the strike on 31 October 2012 was not made by a secret ballot and the company had not received a 24-hour notice. This reasoning concerning the voting procedure quickly proved to be irrelevant, as the continuation of the strike was confirmed by a new vote carried out by secret ballot (the Union’s by-laws make provisions for a show of hands or a secret ballot), with 204 voting for and 42 against the strike. After the Riot Police broke into the factory on 19 July 2012, the Union held another meeting on 21.7.2012 and decided to continue the strike by 164 votes to 5. [Source]

Negotiations and the ‘intransigence’ of the strikers

The workers’ initial demand was that the company should re-employ all those who had been laid off previously and secure their standard working hours and wages. Under a decision made on 6.6.2012, the Union submitted certain propositions for settling the conflict (immediate re-employment of 40 out of 120 redundant workers and a written commitment to employ the remaining workers in due time without hiring new employees) and reopening the plant [Source]. In the mean time, some workers have already found another job or have retired and therefore the number of employees has decreased. The Union asked the Minister of Labour, Mr. G. Vroutsis, to intervene in an effort to conclude a deal. As a response, the company threatened to close down the plant, the riot police broke into the factory and several strikers were arrested. Immediately after the attack by the riot police, the company withdrew their threats proving them to be just that -threats.

Other information

Information about the workers’ wages can be found in an interview (link) given by the Union leader Giorgos Sifonios. For example, his wage after 33 years of work under 4-day rolling shifts and night shifts amounts to 1,450E. New employees make 42E per hour, i.e. about 1,000E per month. A newly employed worker working at the departments operating five days per week (basically all those who are not directly employed in the production line) earn no more than 900E per month.

The strike at Halyvourgia has had minimum, if any, coverage in the Mass Media. The first report by a mainstream TV channel was that of NET on the 21st day of the strike. Usually the Mass Media remember the strike only to broadcast the company’s threats to close down the factory or to excoriate the Communist Party (KKE) for collaborating with the far-right Golden Dawn party (see below).

The Golden Dawn and the strike

The Golden Dawn’s first known involvement with the strike took place on 19.12.2011 (approximately 50 days after the strike began) when their local organization in Volos issued a statement (link) against the strike, indisputably taking the side of the employer. Then a number of Golden Dawn members led by Ilias Kassidiaris visited the plant of Aspropyrgos on 17.2.2012 (after three and a half months of strike) and released a video in which I. Kassidiaris claimed that they had always supported the strikers but couldn’t visit them due to their work engagements.

Mrs. Eleni Katavati who has made several appearances on TV and radio stations (mainly SKAI TV) as the leader of the Struggle Committee at Halyvourgia, is actually one of the minority workers who oppose the strike. She has often claimed to represent the majority of the workers wanting to return to their posts, but this has not been corroborated by the actual decisions made by the workers at their meetings.

Recently a cargo of residues from the steel-making process shipped from the plant of Halyvourgia at Velestino to Sardinia, Italy, was found with radioactive levels exceeding those detected in cargos originating from Fukushima, Japan after the nuclear accident (source). This was not covered by the Mass Media. One would expect the story to appear at least on the environment friendly SKAI News.

After the intervention of the riot police, some workers got into the factory. However, as pointed out in the address (link) to the General Assembly of the Union on 21.7.2012 (held immediately after the operation of the riot police), the workers employed in the production line are still on strike and therefore the plant cannot possibly operate.

Yannis R.-Concerning the Greek Steelworks

Translated by: Ijon Tichy

With the following we would like to clarify some important points related to the strike at Greek Steelworks. Unfortunately there is wide disinformation on the topic of the strike, which is caused mainly by the one sided coverage of this event from the media, and which finds a fertile ground on the blind disgust that a significant part of people feel towards PAME (All Workers Militant Front) and KKE (Communist Party of Greece).

1. Demands of the Union

The 24-hour repeated strikes in the factory of Greek Steelworks in Aspropyrgos started on 1/11/2011 when the employer asked from the employees to choose between 180 lay-offs and 5-hour 5-days work with 40% reduced earnings (which the employees wouldn't be able to counterbalance from somewhere else in their "free" 3 hours). In the meantime, the production was increased:

-2009: 194.600 tones

-2010: 231.000 tones with the foundry closed for two months because of lethal corking accident

-2011 (until October): 266.000 tones

The company has a second factory at Volos where the measures for reduced hours and earnings were accepted, but weren't applied because, due to the strike at Aspropyrgos, the factory at Volos has undertaken the whole production.

Meanwhile on February 3rd, 2012, the company received a permission for the construction of a large private port in front of the steel mill, showing signs for plans on increasing production.

2. Relations between the Union, the strike and PAME

It is indeed true that the president of the Union, Yiorgios Sifonios, is a member of PAME. Correspondingly, his colleague Haris Manolis who is participating in the strike and is an active member of the Union is sympathetic to ANTARSYA. Moreover the strike has been supported by many different, ideologically and politically, areas. Besides, information from the workers reveals that until recently, before the start of the strike, PAME didn't have a strong representation in the Union. In any case, the strike is decided by the Union, which is clearly supported by PAME, but it is not controlled by it.

3. Decisions of the Union

The decisions of the Union for the declaration and the continuation of the strike are taken by the General Assemblies of the Union in which all workers of the Steelworks have the right of participation. Actually, after the declaration of the strike as illegal, there was a new vote with the result of 204 votes in favor of the strike and 42 against. So after a struggle of 9 months, the vast majority of the workers voted in favor of the strike. After the intervention of the police forces in the strike on 19/7/2012, the Union with a new assembly on 21/7/2012 decided with 164 votes in favor and 5 votes against to continue the strike.

4. Material and economic support of the strike

The steelworkers who are on strike and their families are obviously supported materially and economically during the strike. Most of them wouldn't be able to survive otherwise since it makes sense that generally they don't have other incomes apart from their salaries, moreover they weren't paid particularly well in the period before the strike so they don't have much in savings.

The support of the steelworkers who are on strike comes the solidarity of the people, which arrives to them through the economic support of the bank account of the Union, by providing food etc. Moreover other unions and peoples' assemblies act in solidarity by collecting money and food for the support of the strikers, as PAME does. In addition events are organized like parties and concerts for this cause. In any case, anyone can support the strike without getting involved with PAME or any other union.

5. Legal status of the strike

On 5/6/2012 the strike that started on 31/10/2011 was declared illegal by the Single Member Court Of The First Instance of Athens with the rationale that the decision for the start of the strike on 31/10/2011 was taken without a secret vote and without notifying the company 24 hours earlier. This formal argument was annulled immediately by a new vote of the Union, which this time took place with a ballot box (the charter of the Union allows voting with the rise of the hand or with a ballot box) and confirmed the continuation of the strike with 204 votes in favor and 42 against. After the intervention of the police forces in the strike on 19/7/2012, the Union with a new assembly on 21/7/2012 decided with 164 votes in favor and 5 votes against to continue the strike.

6. Negotiations and "intransigence" of the strikers

The initial demand of the workers was to rehire their colleagues -- the ones that were fired -- and not to apply the reductions of hours and salaries. WIth a decision on 6/6/2012 the Union submitted written proposals for the settlement of the differences (immediate rehiring of 40 fired workers -- out of 120 -- and a written statement that the rest will be rehired in a reasonable time period without hiring new workers) and the setting back in motion of the factory. The Union asked from the under-secretary of Labor Y. Vroutsis to intervene in order to close the deal. The answer was the threat of the company to close the factory, the invasion and the occupation of the factory by police forces and the arrest of some strikers. After the intervention of the police forces the company took back the threat of closing the factory, proving that this claim was just a threat.

7. Additional facts

Concerning the earnings of the workers at Greek Steelworks, informations are given in an interview of the president of the Union, Yiorgos Sifonios. For example, Sifonions himself with 33 years of experience, rolling shifts of four days, three weekends and night shifts receives 1450 euros. The newly hired workers receive 42 euros per day, which translates to a salary of 1000 euros. In departments that operate between Monday and Friday (probably those who don't work directly in the steel production) a married newly hired worker receives a salary of less than 900 euros.

The strike at Greek Steelworks has a very limited, almost nonexistent coverage from the media. The first report in the mainstream media was made by NET on the 21st day of the strike. Usually the media remember to report to the public the threats of the company about closing the factory and to denounce the "collaboration" between KKE - Golden Dawn (see below).

8. Relation of the Golden Dawn to the strike

The first known contact between the Golden Dawn and the strike was made on 19/12/2011 (approximately 50 days after the start of the strike) with an announcement of the branch of the Golden Dawn at Volos in which they side clearly with the employer and against the strike. After this, a group of members of the Golden Dawn led by Ilias Kassidiaris visited the factory at Aspropyrgos on 17/2/2012 (3 and a half months after the beginning of the strike) and released a video where Kassidiaris claims that they were on the side of the strikers since the first moment but they couldn't visit them because they were busy.

Miss Eleni Katavati who shows up on TV and radio stations (mostly SKAI) as the president of the Action Committee in Greek Steelworks belongs to the minority of the Union against the strike. She claims that she represents the majority of the workers who want to go back to work, but this hasn't been verified in the General Assemblies.

Recently on a cargo with waste from steel processing, that left from the factory of the Greek Steelworks in Velestino with Sardenia as its final destination, the levels of radioactivity that were detected were higher than the ones that were detected on cargos that from left Fukushima after the nuclear accident! This issue wasn't reported by the media. Someone would expect that especially the ecologically sensitive SKAI would spend some time on it.

After the intervention of the police forces, some workers entered in the factory being escorted by the police. As it is mentioned in the motion of the General Assembly of the Union on 21/7/2012 (immediately after the intervention of the police forces) the workers who work on the production are still on strike so the factory is practically not operating.

Having read the above it is up to everyone to check the given information and cross check them with other sources. It is also up to her/him to consider who are the ones who distort or cover facts about the strike and why they do that.

Steelworkers' Strike: Lies upon lies

Lies upon lies

The Radical [Rizospastis], 

Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, 22 July 2012

Translated by: Lenin Reloaded

Propaganda attacking the steelworkers has reached a fever pitch: They say:

-- "The right to work is sacred." Those speaking of a "right to work" are the guardians of an anarchic, rotten system, which throws millions of people into unemployment. Under conditions of crisis, indeed, unemployment is catapulted in capitalism, due to the uncontrollable destruction of productive forces, with labor power being first in line.  Already, the unemployed in Greece are 1.500.000. Which government has defended their right to work? The government and its parties are defending Manesis, who has already fired 120 workers and who, according to his own statements, intended to shut down the factory and let hundreds of families starve. When it comes to the handful of strike-breakers, the right to work is sacred: this is what the government and its lackeys are saying; but for the hundreds of strikers struggling on behalf of their fired co-workers, it isn't sacred. Their lies and hypocrisy are beyond belief.

-- "We have to apply the law." But which law? The law that proclaims 9 out of 10 strikes illegal. The law that allows employers to impose part-time work on workers, and hence wages that look more like tips. The law that cancels benefits for heavy and health-threatening labor for entire categories of workers who are certain to die slaving, before they manage to go on pension. The law that never punishes the employer when the worker is killed in his inferno. The law that deprives the family of the worker from basic services in Health and Education. These are the laws that they want to see applied; that's why they behave like mad dogs, using D.A.s and court orders whenever workers and the people attempt to resist. The court order against the strike is an alibi and a fabrication. Their justice is class justice. For, according to the letter of the law, the lay-offs that took place during the strike were also illegal, and the workers protested this. But no one cared to apply this law. The decision of the Steelworkers to strike was fully legal, too. But this means nothing to those who took up the mission to break it, one way or another. Their system is unjust toward workers and the people from its very foundation. From the standpoint of the workers, justice is their own struggle to survive, to stop those policies that drive them to crushing poverty, to overturn bourgeois injustice, to subvert bourgeois power.

-- "Intransigence doesn't help, we must have dialogue." They know what they are talking about.  They want labor unionists and a workers' movement that assist them, not oppose them. They want "the collaboration of classes", so they can move freely with the barbaric measures they are imposing; not unions willing to fight for workers' rights. They want Unions with leaderships like the one of the Volos Steelworks, proud to wear the seal of approval of the employer, since it consented to chain the workers down and to accept labor conditions such that two workers have already come close to losing their lives in respective "work accidents." They want "social partners", like those they have in the Union of Private Sector Employees and elsewhere, who will behave like proper victims. They want a labor "movement" tailored to the needs of the employers and of government policy, a fifth column against labor struggles, slanderers and saboteurs of class-conscious unions.

-- "Labor struggles shut factories down." A bold-faced lie. Let them answer: How many labor mobilizations have taken place in the last few months in SIDENOR, which was recently closed? How many class-conscious labor unions did the 600 businesses that were shut down during the last year in Northern Greece have? How many strikes were organized in these businesses? How many, out of the 1.5 million unemployed,  used to work in businesses where a strong, class-conscious union was active in struggle? It is the crisis that shuts factories down while making other factories stronger.  Factories are closed even under conditions of capitalist development (e.g. that of Trikolan), when the capitalist either does not make the profit he expects to make, or is crushed by competition, or moves his capital to other, more profitable sectors of the economy. Those who say that it is labor struggles that close factories are those who in the 1990s, and in the name of the "reconstruction of the Balkans", funded even the purchase of fax machines for businesses that closed operations in Greece so as to move to Bulgaria, Skopje, Albania and Rumania, where wages were drastically lower than those of Greece, making their profit far higher. 

One last thing: The "good ol' boys" like Adonis Georgiadis, who appeared in SKY News to "unveil" the existence of a "front" between the Communist Party of Greece and the fascists of "Golden Dawn", reputedly jointly acting on behalf of the Steelworkers, are vicious liars. They try to slander the Communist Party and the just struggle of the Steelworkers and to give the advantage to the pitbulls they themselves are training against the people. Because, though the "Golden Dawn" is now wearing the sheep's clothing of "pro-labor" attitude, the workers of the Steelworks at Aspropyrgos know very well that in the vital moment when they sought support from their colleagues in Volos, Magnesia, the staff of "Golden Dawn", together with the Union majority there, and together with the local potentates of today's government and their union representatives, did all they could to stop the strike at Manesis' factories, acting as his apparatus.