They carried out a mass strike mobilization in Athens, at pl. Constitution, Unions, Labor Centers and Federations, with thousands of strikers from dozens of job sectors protesting for contracts with wage increases and action to be taken on the matter.

The self-employed, women, pensioners, young men and women demonstrated with them.

At the gathering, a call was addressed to mass participation in the Marathon March on Sunday, April 21st, but also in the worker-popular road race dedicated to the 200 executed communists of May Day ’44, on Sunday, April 28th.

The speeches

At the strike meeting in Athens, Costas Samaras, president of the Edra Union, addressed a greeting on behalf of the LARCO workers. “They robbed us of jobs and investments and gave us unemployment and hunger,” he complained. “Today, the heart of LARCO beats in Larymna” he emphasized and added that in the strike gathering in front of the factory and the frozen chimney, the fire of the workers’ struggle for their jobs and lives is “burning” and will continue to “burn” until to be justified.

“And the public employees are here today, we give a militant “present”, we strike and join the voice with the entire working class. In the question that permeated all these battles “Their profits or our lives”, we will firmly and unwaveringly choose our lives and the lives of our children. We are not taking a step back,” said Spyros Marinis, member of the General Assembly of ADEDY and general secretary of the Greek Teachers’ Federation (IOE). He denounced the “unacceptable choice of the trade union leaders in ADEDY and IOE-OLME and other Public Federations to vote against the strike”. “The same workers, and this is the most important and hopeful thing, overtake them every day and this is also happening today. Despite the striking tactics of these forces, a strong strike front was formed in the public spaces” he added. He also called for participation “in the big concert prepared by the teachers’ unions on Tuesday 23/4 in the afternoon in Propylaia with many favorite artists to fight and sing together for the education and the school we deserve”.

The “miracle” of Tourism, “which includes on the one hand profits for business groups and on the other frozen wages and huge intensification for workers” was described by Manos Mylonas, member of the board of the “Swissport” Employees’ Union at the Athens airport . From the stage of the strike gathering he carried the requests for Collective Agreements, wage increases and three years, Heavy and Unhealthy signs, days off and holidays. In particular, he referred to the Air Traffic Controllers’ repeated attempts at strike action, expressing support “for their just and urgent demands concerning aviation safety”.

Vassilis Stamoulis, general secretary of the DELTA Dairy Workers’ Union, spoke about the power of organization and collective advocacy in the workplace, and gave the example of the operational contract with which workers at the DELTA factory “managed to obtain wage increases and rights, after 15 years in which pay and working conditions have steadily deteriorated.”

Valsamos Syrigos, general secretary of the Federation of Builders and president of the Workers’ Union at the Hellinikon construction site, spoke at the strike meeting.

“And today’s strike battle expressed the strong will of the workers not to compromise with the few, precisely, with poverty. Taking the baton from the great strike on February 28, today’s strike escalates our fight for a life with dignity, for wage increases, for Collective Agreements. For a life protected from the aggression of capital, which has turned workplaces into crematoria. They count profits and we return home less and less. Since the beginning of the year, at least 24 colleagues have been killed, 12 of them in construction. Government has enormous responsibilities. The control mechanisms have disappeared and the controls that are made are for “seen”. Here and now measures should be taken to protect the workers, the committees should be mixed levels with the unions. The essential measures are to stop working sun by sun. The daily wage should be increased so that we can cover our needs and not have to work like slaves,” he said. “Those who crush our lives with precision and exploitation in the workplace are the same ones who want us to defend their profits, their bloody profits from the blood of the people. They even christen our country’s involvement in the massacre of peoples as a patriotic duty. And from this step we show our solidarity to the peoples and demand the return of the frigate “Hydra” and the artillery of the “Patriot”, every military unit that is outside the borders. Stop contributing to the carnage with guns and ammunition by supporting the reactionary Zelenskyi government in Ukraine and the murderous state of Israel. Let the foundations of death be closed now. We are not fighting for the US, NATO and the EU, we are not fighting for the profits of shipowners,” he said. “Consistent with the principles and values ​​of the class movement and proletarian internationalism, PAME is visiting Belgrade this weekend, 25 years after the imperialist intervention and dismemberment of Yugoslavia. We are demonstrating on the Novissant bridge, a symbol of resistance against NATO brutality. Because 75 years of NATO means juntas and wars and not “sacred alliance” as the left mouthpieces of American NATOists tell us,” he added. He emphasized that “the current success of the strike, in addition to the response it gives to employers and the government, also gives a response to employer and government trade unionism, to the leaderships of GSEE and ADEDY who, in divided roles, are trying in every way to undermine the organized mass mobilization of workers” he pointed out. “With organization and struggle we can impose our right” he underlined. He also added that “the establishment of the union at the largest construction site in Europe is a first step to avoid becoming the “Greek Qatar”, in terms of workplace crimes,” said V. Syrigos.

He concluded his speech by stating that “the next big stop in our struggle is the International Day of the Working Class, May Day, which is a strike and not a holiday and will take place on May 1st. Let the government do whatever it wants on the holiday, we are on strike on Wednesday May 1st, we are participating in the strike meeting of the trade unions, at the Syntagma, at 10.30 in the morning”.