PAME: We denounce the plans of the SYRIZA Government to attack the demonstrators using riot police forces

July 15, 2105 PAME demonstration

PAME salutes the thousands of workers, unemployed, pensioners, young workers and students, the women, the self employed and small farmers who took part massively at the demonstrations of PAME on July 15th, all over Greece. The demonstrations send a message of struggle, not disappointment, of militancy, not defeatism, against the new brutal measures of the 3rd Memorandum of the SYRIZA Government.

We denounce the upgraded provocation plan of the Government of SYRIZA, to use the oppression forces of the riot police, alongside with parastate mechanisms during the enormous demonstration of PAME in Athens, on July 15th. This was a plan that aimed to break the demonstration of PAME, to intimidate the workers and the popular strata.

The attack on PAME was planned

The Police attacks the PAME rally at the "Fix" juncture

The attack on PAME was planned

Rizospastis, Friday, 17 July 2015

The Tsipras government has been exposed following the police attack, on July 15, against the PAME rally. The attack took place as the Parliament was discussing the third Memorandum. Besides immediate experience, the collection of data regarding the attack leads to the conclusion that the attack was well planned. The police acted on a command plan and with the clear goal not only of emptying the area outside the Parliament, but of beating protesters far away from the Parliament. A characteristic example is the attack by police "Delta" teams, which took place at the "Fix" juncture, kilometers away from the Parliament, and at a time when the protesters were folding up their banners.

All the data leads to the same conclusion: well before the attack, groups of 6-7 members were spotted spread around the Syntagma plaza. At about 9 pm, i.e, at the time in which Parliament discussion was scheduled to start, a group placed near the Grand Britania hotel began throwing stones at police forces that were placed near the flower stores. As streets were empty of protesters, both toward Panepistimiou street, which was empty, and toward Georgiou street, which was empty as well,  the police opted to turn the initial small group of supposed anarchists toward the main body of the protest, using tear gas for that purpose. 

PAME: Response to the Tsipras-Juncker joint statement

The Tsipras-Juncker joint statement is the harbinger of a new, guillotine-type agreement 

P.A.ME

The Tsipras-Juncker joint statement issued today, and relating to labor and social security issues, as well as the presentation of its content as an indication of progress, mean that we are getting closer to new anti-labor and anti-people measures. The joint statement is the harbinger of a new, guillotine-type agreement for the people -- a new "Memorandum."

Just as the "Troika" was rebaptized as "Institutions", so the butchering of whatever labor and popular rights have remained in labor relations and social security is rebaptized "a modern and effective system of collective bargaining" and a "modernization of the pension system."

Do not be fooled! What they announced with the joint statement is the new onslaught that will base itself on laws on which the slaughter of labor and insurance rights was built during all the previous years. It is proved in practice that the bravado of the government concerning alleged "red lines" was thin air!

G. Marinos-Speech at Kiev, May Day 2015

The May 1 rally of communists and veterans of the antifascist war was held in the Ukrainian capital in an atmosphere of intense repression, provocation and police intimidation. The delegation of the KKE, comprised of G. Marinos, member of the PB of the CC of the KKE and Elisseos Vagenas, member of the CC and Responsible for the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE, was in Kiev at the invitation of the CP Ukraine.

Speaking at the event, G. Marinos noted the following:

Dear comrades,

The CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), thousands of members and friends of the party and the Communist Youth (ΚΝΕ), thousands of workers, express their internationalist solidarity with the CP of Ukraine, with the communist men and women of your country and decisively denounce anticommunism, the wave of persecution that is being organized by the government, by the Ukrainian authorities.

We denounce the anticommunist law 2558 that was recently passed in the Ukrainian parliament and we demand its annulment.

PAME denounces the new alliance of SYRIZA with the fascist Golden Dawn

PAME denounces the new governmental trade unionism of SYRIZA, who does not hesitate at nothing in order to gain a few votes, not even in an alliance with the Nazi, criminal Golden Dawn.

While in the workplaces the layoffs and wage-cuts continue with the new government and while the class trade union movement struggles to organize workers against the new anti-people agreement signed by the Government of SYRIZA with the European Union, at the same time the forces of SYRIZA in the trade unions, are trying to show that they are gaining support by the workers and for this reason they even ally with the fascists of Golden Dawn.

Torn pages

Yannis Kordatos, History of the Greek Working Class Movement, Boukoumanis Publishers, 1977, page 84, footnote 2:

When the newspaper Epi ta Prosso came out [1896], its publishers were hard up for cash. So they wrote to Pyrgos [Peloponnese] and asked for some money. In Patras, two sisters who worked in a sewing factory, and got paid 1,20 drachmas a day, stated that they would give, to support the newspaper, 3,50 each every weekend. In Pyrgos, again, Panos Giannopoulos, aka Machairas, together with Batounas, went to an upper-class coffeehouse and begged alms for a poor family. That way, they collected 35 drachmas (which was a great sum for that time), and sent it to the newspaper editors. The worker sisters died a year later, both of them from tuberculosis, yet, to the end of their lives, they showed exemplary commitment to their ideas, and tried to awaken other workers through their propaganda.

Without a name, without a personal history, without an explicable political genealogy, two TB-stricken women workers in Patras spend the last year of their lives funding one of the first socialist newspapers in the country, more than a hundred years ago.

Out books are full of torn pages, missing extracts, stories never told, or rather, stories that appear as insoluble enigmas addressed to us by a historical Sphinx. Radical historiography is not merely the struggle of memory against oblivion; it is a struggle against the fact that oblivion is constitutive, because it is part of the original circumstances attending subalternity, that is, class history as such. To these vanished voices, content cannot fully be restored. One finds oneself forced to restore to them their share of obscurity, their right to live on in the threshold of the retroactively intelligible, half submerged, half visible, as insistent demands to excavate something with no name, something buried nowhere specifically.

It is of these unknown ancestors one speaks when one speaks of history, it is with them one signs a secret agreement, it is from them that one receives a coded promise concerning the future.

What is the future? It is where the sewing women will have a name. Where they will sew and sew the torn pages back into the book, with a bright red thread. 

Written 30 December 2009, translated by the author on the occasion of International Working Women's Day.

On International Women’s Day

Dozens of events were held last week by the Federation of Greek Women (OGE) and the KKE in many Greek cities for the 8th of March, International Women’s Day.

The statement of the CC of the KKE notes the following amongst other things on this issue:

“On the occasion of the historic anniversary of March 8th, International Women’s Day, the CC of the KKE sends a message of greetings to all women: working women, salaried women, unemployed, pensioners, self-employed, women in the rural areas, young women in the schools, vocational education centres, Universities and Technological Institutes, research institutes, immigrant women, women from single parent families and from families with many children, mothers of children with disabilities, young mothers,. It sends militant greetings to the women all over the world who are suffering due to the imperialist interventions.

On the dangerous and misleading campaign of so-called “solidarity with the Greek people”

Comment of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE 

At the same time as the discussions and meetings of the new Greek SYRIZA-ANEL government are under way at an international level, before the beginning of the official negotiations with the “European partners” and “lenders”, a “campaign of solidarity with the Greek people and left government” is being promoted by certain forces abroad. 

However, if someone looks at the real conditions and facts in an objective way they would notice that the following are at the centre of the negotiations: how the people will continue to pay the high price for the debt that they did not create, how the competitiveness of the business groups will be reinforced, how the “reforms” will proceed (which, as the Prime Minister A. Tsipras stressed during his meeting with the French President F. Hollande on 4/2, are aims of the government, no one is imposing them), how ready money will be secured for capital’s recovery. 

Self-defense as an ethical act of the highest order

Sometime ago, a comrade--an unemployed construction worker who lives in one of the poorest refugee homes near the border with the occupied part of Cyprus--asked me what I thought people like Nikos Belogiannis (pictured laughing during his trial, second to the left) thought and felt as they faced the firing squad. "What was it that allowed them to face self-sacrifice of the highest order with a smile?", he asked me. He wasn't looking for an answer; he said he wanted me to think about the question myself.

I thought about the question on and off, for some time now. And when I tried to think about it I realized I had to reject some of the easiest answers, the ones very often reproduced in the media and in "public opinion" about men and women like Nikos Belogiannis. The media, when it doesn't slander communists, likes to portray them as latter-day saints, who were capable of self-sacrifice because they held an incredibly idealistic belief in the salvation of the class, and so saw themselves as its anointed martyrs. But Belogiannis, and the vast majority of those who underwent torture, imprisonment and execution, were atheists and materialists. They did not believe in any afterlife, and they did not believe they would be "recompensed" in some spiritual sense. Fotis Aggoules, a worker-poet of the 1930s who underwent prolonged imprisonment, put it succinctly: "Don't expect us to bend/for we have loved life too much." Resistance is not only not renunciation of earthly pleasure, it is lust for life.

Migrant Workers! PAME stands by your side!

PAME mobilization in Manolada, after migrant workers' shootings

Migrant worker,

You are in our country and you struggle to make a living for you and your family. 

You are facing thousands of difficulties to ensure a residence permit, to have a job, to have somewhere to live and to feel safe. 

We know that in some cases they do not pay you, in some other they steal your wages and in some other they force you to work for more hours than those required. We know that the government of our country with the laws it applies and with the European directions that it follows, wants you half-illegal, half-legal, so that the bosses can exploit you; they want you to be afraid to claim your rights.

PAME: Greek Worker Solidarity for Turkish Workers

PAME supports the struggle of the Turkish Metal Workers 

PAME, which represents the class-oriented trade union movement of Greece, condemns the Turkish Government, which satisfies the demands of the industrialists by prohibiting the strike of the metalworkers who fight for the signing of a Collective Contract with better wages. 

On Wednesday, February 4 the trade union of the Metal Workers Birlesik Metal-Is is organizing a big protest demonstration defending the right of the workers to go on strike. Based on the principles of Internationalist Solidarity, PAME will join the demonstration with a delegation that will travel to Turkey. At the same time PAME will organise protests outside the Turkish Consulates in Greece 

We demand: 

Revoking of the Turkish government's decision to ban the strike 

Satisfaction of the demands of the metalworkers for signing collective agreements with better wages.

PAME Hellas, translation emended by Lenin Reloaded.

On SYRIZA and an article by "Morning Star"

The Morning Star on the 17/1 featured an article on the developments in Greece and the prospects regarding the election of a SYRIZA government (“Athens stands on the verge of its liberation” by Kevin Ovenden). The writer paints a picture of the situation in Greece today that has nothing to do with the reality and misleads the paper’s readers. Specifically, he states that SYRIZA belongs to the “Radical Left” and that the impending election of a SYRIZA government marks a rupture with the European establishment. Indeed, he attempts to depict SYRIZA as the historic continuation of the titanic struggles of the communist movement in Greece in the 20th century. This is an anti-historical approach and although an analysis of these issues is beyond the scope of our article, we would merely like to note that EAM, ELAS and the DSE came into fierce confrontations with the fascist occupier, US and British imperialism and the class enemy in Greece, paying the price with thousands of dead, years of persecution, torture and exile and in contrast to all this, the President and leading officials of SYRIZA are feted in the mansions of the plutocracy, the IMF, in Texas, in the Bilderberg Group of Italy’s (Ambrosetti Forum) meeting in Lake Como, in the City of London and provide assurances and loudly declare that our country’s membership of the EU and NATO is not disputed. 

International Communist League-For International Solidarity with Greek Steel Workers!

On Strike for Over 200 Days

For International Solidarity with Greek Steel Workers! The following article is reprinted from Workers Hammer No. 219 (Summer 2012).

ICL-FI

Workers at the Greek steel plant Elliniki Halyvourgia have been on strike for nearly eight months. Since October last year, they have been fighting against an attack by their employer, Nikos Manesis, who is attempting a drastic cut in wages. He has also fired over 100 workers under new anti-union laws introduced as part of the conditions of the EU/IMF [European Union/International Monetary Fund] loans. The steel workers are part of the small but strategic Greek proletariat. According to Guardian journalist Jon Henley, this steel factory made iron rods and girders that helped build the Athens Metro, the Olympic stadium and the bridge linking the Peloponnese to mainland Greece (guardian.co.uk, 14 June). It is in the vital interests of all workers in Europe to stand in internationalist solidarity with these courageous workers in their class battle. A victory for the steel workers would be a blow to the Greek capitalists and the imperialist EU and IMF.

The strike was declared illegal by the courts on 5 June, but the strikers remain solid. A team of comrades visited the pickets on 9 June. We reprint below an edited version of their report.

*   *    *

Yesterday afternoon we visited the picket line at the Halyvourgia Steel Factory in Aspropyrgos, a seaside town outside Athens. The strike there has been the subject of a great deal of press coverage and is something of an epicentre for class struggle in Greece and around Europe. Comrades had made an earlier trip to the picket lines and the most recent issue of Le Bolchévik, newspaper of our French section, has a statement of solidarity with the strike. The surrounding town is, in a word, desolate. The small town centre was empty.

The workers were picketing outside the factory gates. There are PAME slogans, signs, and banners along the highway, on the gates, and across nearby overpasses. PAME is a formation within the trade-union movement that is in political solidarity with the Greek Communist Party, the KKE. A sign in German from the metalworkers union proclaims solidarity with the strike, saying “Your fight is our fight.” Ominously, there is also one instance of fascist Golden Dawn graffiti near the plant. There are security agents patrolling the property. Ten or so workers were stationed inside the main gates, blocking the entrance to the factory. They were reading Rizospastis, the KKE’s daily newspaper. All of the workers were men, and their ages ranged from 30s-60s. We were told that during the week, there are many more workers on the picket line, including women.

We introduced ourselves as Trotskyists from the ICL who were visiting to show our support for the strike. The workers were very friendly. Union officials at the plant allowed us to distribute our article “Banks Starve Greek Working People” [WV No. 1002, 11 May]. We also left copies of our statement calling for critical support to the KKE in the election. We showed them Workers Vanguard (published by the Spartacist League/U.S.) with a recent article on the Hamilton, Ontario, steel lockout (WV No. 976, 18 March). One union official we spoke to is a 30-year veteran of the plant who is responsible for distributing the weekly strike pay. A striker read the title of our article—“Greek Trotskyists Say: Vote KKE! No Vote to Syriza!” (reprinted on page 7)—in a sarcastic tone. Another worker asked us to read the letter in Le Bolchévik. The workers nodded their agreement during the sections on international solidarity, but stopped paying attention once we got to a quote from Trotsky.

Background to the Strike

There are some 380 workers at the steel plant who have been on strike for 224 days as of today. The trade union called the strike and PAME stepped in. The plant is owned by the Greek capitalist Nikos Manesis, who owns a similar plant in Volos. The strike began last autumn after Manesis demanded five-hour workdays and a 40 per cent cut in wages. He claimed that the factory was in financial trouble, and that this would be a stop-gap measure. According to the strikers, the union counter-offered to maintain an eight-hour day and take a temporary 40 per cent pay cut, to be repaid when the plant became profitable again. But Manesis rejected this and announced that he would fire the legal maximum of 5 per cent of the workforce every month if the union didn’t accept. The workers went on strike, and Manesis has fired over 100 workers so far. In mid-January, when the union met with the Greek labour minister, Manesis fired five workers when the meeting was announced, another five when they entered the ministry building, and another five when the meeting was postponed. Another striker told us that one of their main demands is for all the fired workers to be rehired. Meanwhile, workers in the Volos plant were forced to accept the company’s offer, causing tension between the two groups of workers.

We were also told that earlier this year, a number of workers at Aspropyrgos signed a statement, prepared by the company’s lawyers, stating that they wanted to return to work. This was used as the basis for a law suit against the union. However the union was able to convince the majority of the workers to take back their statements. These workers said they didn’t know their statement would be used in court, and signed a counter-statement declaring they supported the strike. The strikers told us they receive weekly financial support from their union, plus food and clothing for their kids from supporters. Six workers don’t take the money because they don’t want to ask, and there are a number of others who have been cut off for refusing to take back their anti-strike statements. A number of workers are chosen each month to monitor the steel furnace to keep it from exploding. These workers are paid, but are not considered scabs by the workers and are supported by the union. PAME and the KKE provide food and other material help to the strikers and their families. Last Christmas, a PAME official delivered one lamb to the family of every striking worker.

The State Is Not Neutral

There have been several attacks on the strike by scabs, but so far the union has repulsed all of them. The union official told us that a number of scabs went to the police chief for protection, but he told them that if he protected them he would also have to protect the striking workers if they asked. Of course, the state is far from neutral in this protracted and popular struggle. The union and three individual workers are facing a law suit, for not carrying out the strike vote in accordance with the law. A few days ago the courts declared the strike illegal and this led to another attack by scabs. For defending their picket line, some workers have been charged with assault and are awaiting trial.

But the strikers remain defiant and the militancy of this strike has really galvanised popular opinion in a time of horrific austerity. The union official told us a number of stories about solidarity, both from within Greece and around the world. He showed us pictures drawn by schoolchildren who supported the strike. A mainstream Italian news network has filmed at the plant and there have been a number of solidarity visits. A wealthy Greek woman has periodically delivered carloads of groceries and donated 600 euro [$746].

We highlighted the need to oppose nationalism and defend the rights of minorities, including national minorities, in Greece. We inquired about reports that Golden Dawn had visited the pickets and were told that several Golden Dawn supporters showed up anonymously with boxes of food and supplies; one of them took the microphone and quickly announced that Golden Dawn supported the strike. Not surprisingly, some workers were upset by this and complained about it to the union officials.

The workers understand that this strike is very important in Greece and internationally. They recognise that they have become a model for other struggles, and they do not want to cave in, despite the extreme hardship of such a long strike. A worker told us that there is no way he can go back to work without victory, after over 200 days on the picket line. He said, “If I go back to work now, how will I be able to look at my children?” Despite this commitment, conditions are very difficult. Now that the state has declared the strike illegal there will be more pressure and more attacks by scabs and the police. It is vital to approach unions internationally now for letters of solidarity. As we left the plant, I told the union official that the ICL sends its greetings and wishes the workers victory in their struggle. Tears came to his eyes and he embraced me.

Contact Information

• The address for solidarity letters is:

17th Km NEOAK

Elleniki Halyvourgia

Asproprygos 19300, Greece

Fax number: 011-30-210-557-8360

Telephone: 011-30-210-557-0829

• Donations in support of the steel strikers should be sent to:

National Bank of Greece

IBAN: GR 40 0110 2000 0000 2006 2330 152

BIC/Swift Code: ETHNGRAA

Account holder: Dimitris Liakos

The steelworkers guarding modern-day Thermopylae

The steelworkers guarding modern-day Thermopylae

By Leonidas Oikonomakis On July 21, 2012

Roarmag.org

If Spain has the miners of Asturias, Greece has the steelworkers of Aspropyrgos. Their 9-month strike symbolizes the workers’ struggle in neoliberal Europe.

“Thermopylae”

Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.

And even more honor is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that in the end Efialtes will make his appearance,
that the Medes will break through after all.
C.P. Cavafy
Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard
(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

If Spain has the miners of Asturias, Greece has the steelworkers of Aspropyrgos. Their nine-month strike symbolizes the struggle for the defence of labor rights, worker’s solidarity, and the government’s role in today’s neoliberal Europe.

It all started nine months ago.

The ownership of the factory of Halyvourgia Ellados (Steelworks of Greece), under the pretext of the financial crisis, announced to the 360 workers that they had two options:

Either to accept an horizontal 40% salary cut and five-hour-shift workdays, or the layoff of 170 of them. The workers assembled and decided to reject the blackmail. Very soon thereafter, the owners of the factory announced to 120 of the steelworkers their layoff. The workers assembled again, and decided to go on strike in solidarity with their fired co-workers, demanding their re-employment. And they have not worked in the factory ever since. Until Thursday night.

While the negotiations between the ownership and the workers where ongoing, the ownership announced to the Minister of Labor that they would close down the factory of Aspropyrgos and fire the remaining 240 workers, unless the strike would break. Obviously the nine-month struggle of the workers had started to make an impact on the owners’ profit. A nine-month strike which, to understand the context, has been maintained with huge efforts by the 360 steelworkers and their families, who of course have been left without income throughout this whole period of time. Of course this heroic struggle attracted the solidarity of Greek (and international) civil society, which through numerous initiatives has been providing support to the Greek steelworkers.

Their struggle has been viewed nationally as the modern-day Thermopylae, where a few workers and their families have been defending the labor rights and the dignity of the working population of the country. If the neoliberal logic would pass through the “Gates of Fire” of the Steelworks, then nobody would be left to defend labor rights in this country.

And the steelworkers were holding well, until the ownership of the factory found its own modern-day Efialtes in the face of Antonis Samaras’ government, who had no problem to play that role. Yesterday at dawn, like a proper Efialtes, it sent the riot police to break the strike, under the pretext of “protecting the right to labor” of the workers who wanted to go back to work. In reality, protecting the interests of the factory’s ownership.

Solidarity demonstrations have been and are still being organized in Athens and Thessaloniki ever since, and the steelworkers have announced that despite the fact that the factory re-opened, they are determined to continue their strike.

The incident described above is not just a story of a strike that was broken. It is much more than that. On a symbolic level, it shows what’s the role of government in today’s neoliberal Greece and Europe, and whose interests it is protecting. And it is not coincidental that the government decided to intervene to break this strike, just like it was not coincidental that Xerxes decided to break the resistance of the 300 Spartans and the 700 Thespians at Thermopylae: they were both expecting that if they could make it through the Gates of Fire, there wouldn’t be much resistance left to beat.

What the Greek government forgets, though, is that the sacrifice of the Spartans and the Thespians at the Battle of Thermopylae did not go in vain. It gave the necessary time to the remaining Greek army to reorganize itself, and finally beat the army of Xerxes in the battles that followed: that of Salamis, that of Plataea, and that of Mycale…

Decision of the General Assembly of the Steelworkers' Union

On Saturday, July 21, the crucial General Assembly of the Union of Workers in the Greek Steelworks decided, by vast majority (164 votes for, 5 against), the continuation of the strike. It also issues a call for a demonstration at Omonoia Plaza on Monday, 7.30 pm.

Source: New Left Current (NAC)

Greek Steel Workers Strike: 264 days of struggle

Greek steel workers by YORGOS KARAHALIS / Reuters

Greek Steel Workers Strike: 264 days of struggle

By Nicolas Mottas
OpEd News

A working class hero is something to be.

An ongoing revolution is taking place during the last nine months in crisis-stricken Greece. I'm not referring to the known scenes of indignant citizens marching outside the Parliament. I'm referring to a less known, but much more significant, story. It's a heroic struggle that is taking place outside the steel plant of the "Hellenic Halyvourgia" (Greek Coal/Steel industry) at Aspropyrgos, a suburb of Athens. The story is a characteristic example of class struggle within the context of the severe capitalist crisis which dominates the country since 2009.

For 264 consecutive days, the workers of the private-owned industrial colossus "Hellenic Halyvourgia" remain on strike, thus trying to defend their obvious rights with all the means they got in their hands. It could be the story of any worker, in any part of the world. Last Tuesday, a mass rally in support of the steel workers took place in central Athens -- the message was more than clear: the struggle of the strikers will continue until victory!

From his side, in a profound effort to terrorize the workers, N.Manesis (the owner of "Hellenic Halyvourgia") has publicly threatened that the Aspropyrgos steel plant will be soon closed if the strike continues. The whole story started last October: The administration of the industry -- the largest of steel production in Greece -- decided to reduce the working hours and cut the salaries in an effort to counterbalance the losses generated by the economic crisis. On October 2011, taking advantage of the anti-labor laws passed under the EU-IMF bailout agreement, the employer announced drastic cuts in wages, the layoffs of 36 workers and his plan to fire 180 from a total of around 400 working men and women. The action provoked a strong response from the Union -- supported by the All Workers Militant Front (PAME) -- which decided the first 24-hours long strikes.

Answering the hypocritical arguments of the industry's administration, the president of the steel workers Union Giorgos Sifonios presented data according to which: the production of iron at the steel plant had been increased from 194,600 tones in 2009 to 231,000 in 2010 and even before the end of 2011 it had already reached 266,000 tones (Rizospastis, 2.11.2011). It therefore became absolutely clear that the motives behind the layoffs and the cuts is the maximization of the owner's profit -- the very essence of the capitalist system's function.

Since then, the steel workers continue their strike under especially difficult circumstances. While the government "washes its hands" calling for a "commonly accepted" solution, a propagandistic mechanism has tried to throw mud on this heroic struggle. I copy from a recent announcement issued by PAME, the working coordination center affiliated with the Greek Communist Party:

"The last press releases coming from part of the Media and people working for Manesis slander the trade union and the steelworkers' struggle and are by no means random. They are parts of the plan to terrorise with threats and blackmails, to break the steelworkers' proud struggle, and show "green light" to the employers in total. In this game of impressions one loyal ally of Manesis is the governmental and employers' trade unionism. They never lose the chance to attack the trade union, for the tactics it has been following, and to advice it to submit. On Thurdsay Mr Panagopoulos (president of General Confederation of Greek Workers), making statements in one of the state TV channels, supported the position that "mo matter what salaries and working relations, as long as jobs aren't lost". Right now the capital has got one and only goal. They want to crush the price of labour power, under the conditions of crisis, so all these can be used as "fertilizers" in order to achieve recuperation. The struggles the workers not to become slaves, is called "blackmail" and "the cause of shutting down the factories". On the other hand wages of 400 euros and crushing the workers' lives is considered healthy entrepreneurship and necessary realism".

All these months, the leadership and members of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) have been by the side of the steel workers and their families. Talking to the media, the KKE Secretary-General Aleka Papariga brought the issue of the strike at the center of the political interest. During her last visit to the plant earlier this month, Papariga called the political parties to support the demands of the workers, contrary to the threats of the employer. And indeed, there is no middle situation on that case -- you can be either with the workers or with the industrialist. Any other stance can be described only as a hypocritical speculation or pure opportunism.

For 264 days the Greek steel workers try to protect their vested rights contrary to a mechanism of terrorism. On June, the Athens First Instance Court declared the strike as 'illegal' following a decision by the judge who argued that the strike, started on 31 October 2011, was decided without holding a... secret ballot. The strike was therefore 'unlawful', according to the class-oriented standards of Greek Justice. As a consequence, a secret ballot was held by the workers union on the 28 th of May which showed 204 votes for and only 42 votes against.

However, the mechanisms of manipulation and anti-labor terrorism continue to blame the striking workers for closing down the steel plant. But the truth is that the workers striking activity has absolutely nothing to do with the closing of the industries -- it is the competition character of the capitalist, free market economy and the neoliberal policies which have put lockers to many Greek industries and factories.

For example, a number of industries in Greece have either cancelled their function or moved their plants to neighboring countries: United Textile (Lanaras), Diamond Hellas, Ideal Standard, the shipyards at Skaramangas port, Katselis Thessaloniki, Foco, Mines at Kassandra, Viosol and many others. The Thessaloniki Industry Chamber has provided data according to which 627 small and large enterprises have shut down during 2012.

Who should be blamed for closing down all these private industries? The workers or the industrialists? The struggles of the working people or the governmental policies?

A common struggle.
The nine-months long struggle of the steel workers at "Hellenic Halyvourgia" is a struggle of the whole working class in Greece. It's a common struggle. And it gives a message to the working people around Europe, but also to the rest of world, wherever the rights of the workers are threatened by the laws and practices of capitalist oppression. Messages of solidarity, from Spain to Mexico and from France to Cyprus have been issued in support of the Greek workers who demand a better future, for them and for their children.

The 264 days of strike at the steel plant of Aspropyrgos, a few miles outside Athens, is an example of a solid, heroic resistance. The workers are determined to continue their struggle until victory -- for that they have contributed with specific proposals (Collective Contracts for everyone, reinstatement of the fired workers, humane conditions of work ) including the cancellation of the layoffs decided by the employer. The vindication of this hard and proud struggle will definitely be a victory for every worker in any corner of the world.

[UPDATE] - July 20, 2012:

The above article was written on Thursday, 19th of July. On the early morning of Friday, Riot Police forces, under the instructions of the coalition government, attempted to break the heroic strike of the steel workers, thus arresting the strikers picket line, who have been on strike for 9 months. Very quickly and after the mobilisation of PAME, hundreds of workers gathered at the gates of HALIVOURGIA to support the strikers steel workers. The solidarity mobilisation was still in progress on Friday afternoon.

All Workers Militant Front-Attempts to Break the Nine-Month Strike of the Steelworkers Using Riot Police/INTENTOS DE ROMPER LA HUELGA GENERAL DE 9 MESES DE LOS TRABAJADORES DE LA ACERÍA USANDO LA POLICÍA ANTIDISTURBIOS

ATTEMPTS TO BREAK THE 9MONTH STRIKE OF THE STEEL WORKERS USING RIOT POLICE

On the early morning of Friday, Riot Police forces, under the instructions of the three-party Greek government (ND neoliberals, PASOK socialdemocrats, DHMAR) attempted to break the heroic struggle of the steel workers, by arresting the strikers picket line, who have been on strike for 9 months.

The executive secretariat of PAME, responded immediately by calling the workers and the trade unions of the area to go immediately at the factory of the HALIVOURGIA. In very short time, at the gates of HALIVOURGIA gathered hundreds of workers from all over Athens to support the strikers steel workers. The solidarity mobilisation is still in progress.

The board of the steel workers’ trade union met immediately and calls for solidarity the workers of the area to a rally at the gates of the factory in the afternoon. Tomorrow Saturday, will realise General Assembly of the workers of the steel industry in order to decide how to respond to this new attack.

We call all trade unions and workers to condemn the antilabour and terrorizing practices of the Greek government that responds with violence and suppression to the just demands of the workers. The struggle of the steelworkers against wage cuts and lay offs is struggle of all workers.

The Executive Secretariat

INTENTOS DE ROMPER LA HUELGA GENERAL DE 9 MESES DE LOS TRABAJADORES DE LA ACERÍA USANDO LA POLICÍA ANTIDISTURBIOS

Desde temprano esta la mañana la policía antidisturbios, bajo las instrucciones del gobierno tripartito (ND neoliberales, PASOK y DHMAR socialdemocratas) intentaron romper la lucha heroica de los trabajadores de la acería, al detener los grupos de salvaguardia, que han estado en huelga desde hace 9 meses.

El Secretariado Ejecutivo de PAME, respondió inmediatamente llamando a los trabajadores, las trabajadoras y los sindicatos de la zona a que vayan inmediatamente a la fábrica de HALIVOURGIA. En muy poco tiempo, en las puertas de HALIVOURGIA se reunieron cientos de trabajadores de Atenas para apoyar a los huelgistas acereros. La mobilización de solidaridad todavia está en marcha.

La Junta Directiva del sindicato de los trabajadores de la acería se reunió inmediatamente e hizo un llamado para una manifestación de solidaridad a las puertas de la fábrica por la tarde. Mañana, Sábado, se realizará la Asamblea General de los trabajadores con el fin de decidir cómo respondera a este nuevo ataque.

Llamamos a todos los sindicatos y los obreros a condenar la política antilaboral y terrorista del gobierno griego que responde con violencia y represión a las justas demandas de los trabajadores. La lucha de los trabajadores de la acería en contra de los recortes salariales y de los despidos es lucha de todos los trabajadores.

PAME

Call for international solidarity for Greek Steelworkers' Strike

This morning, at approximately 5.30 am,  and after the issuing of a warrant for the termination of the heroic Steelworkers' Strike, in Aspropyrgos, Attica, riot police forces attacked the strikers, arresting six workers who were safeguarding the strike site, and molesting members of the Communist Party of Greece and the Coalition of the Radical Left who were on site. They subsequently allowed a small number of scabs and office managers to enter the factory, resuming work. This action took place despite the fact that the majority of the workers had recently decided for a continuation of the strike. This violent and dictatorial attempt to put an end to the longest workers' strike in Greek history (263 days as of today) has been the culmination of months of employer-encouraged attempts to isolate, sabotage, slander and in every way undermine the living symbol of Greek popular resistance against capitalist barbarity and naked exploitation in the country, under the auspices of the Greek Government, the IMF, the EU, and the European Central Bank.

All the parties of the Greek Left, with the ignominious exception of the class traitors of the so-called "Democratic Left" that has joined forces with the corrupt plutocracy that rules the country with an iron fist, have made statements of protest and are organizing immediate demonstrations starting today.

We call on all the Progressive Forces globally --workers, unemployed, underpaid, precarious laborers, pensioners, women, immigrants-- to support and show solidarity for the beating heart of the European workers' movement: the Steelworkers of Greece Strike. By agitating, demonstrating, protesting against what is taking place in Greece, calling on their governments to protest the utter annihilation of basic working rights within the European Union, in a so-called "advanced" country of the west.

Funds are also sorely needed by the long-unemployed workers, who are currently being blackmailed to return to work or stay fired.

The Greek Steelworkers' strike Bank Account information is as follows:

National Bank of Greece

IBAN: GR4001102000000020062330152

BIC or Swift Code : ETHNGRAA ( Bank Idendifier Code )

Name of Bank Account Owner (on behalf of the strikers): Liakos Dimitris

For English-language information, please visit the All Workers Miltant Front, at this address: http://pamehellas.gr/index.php/en/ Please disseminate as widely as possible.