From ENEDEP-COSCO Workers’ Union Statement
THE SIGNING OF COLLECTIVE CONTRACT IS THE RESULT OF OUR OWN STRUGGLES, OUR MASSIVE ACTION. OUR FIGHTS ARE FAIR – THEY BRING RESULTS
We broke their walls! Every obstacle was broken down by our massive relentless struggles! We continue rallying with our own castle, the ENEDEP COSCO Workers’ Union!
Colleagues,
After many months of decisive and relentless struggle, with the strength of the organization and the mobilization of colleagues but also of the huge solidarity, we, the workers with our Union in the front line, ENEDEP, we forced the employers to sign a Collective Bargaining Agreement – BCC for all the workers in the docks of COSCO I Piraeus.
Today is not the end of a long militant season – but only the beginning and the basis for the port to cease to be a special economic zone of exploitation in Piraeus, it is the beginning for new conquests!
Colleagues, even at the last moment, the Employer “blackmailed” the defense of its employer’-controlled union – putting the signing of the Contract in great danger!
The Administration of our Union, with the priority of the rights and the interest of all our colleagues in the port, managed to cancel the unacceptable method set by the employer for the sake of its own children – but most importantly: to fight until the last moment and to be able to impose on the terms of the BCC that was signed, those terms that guarantee the rights of workers. Those terms, that is, that deliberately would NOT have been included in the BCC if the Employer and the employer’-controlled union had already hastily signed!
In the last hours literally, we fought relentlessly against the blackmail tactics of the employers and finally we succeeded:
– to impose on the BCC as a criterion for the conversion of contracts into full-time employment under “primarily” the criterion of seniority
– to impose on the BCC specific, fair and objective criteria in the process of upgrading specialties
– to impose on the BCC that those colleagues who do not wish to sign the new individual contracts, will not remain in the old remuneration regime (as requested by the employer) – but will also be entitled to the new increased remuneration per specialty
– to impose on the BCC that the decisions-opinions of the Health and Safety Committee will be taken into account in practice by the employer
– not to pass the employer blackmail, that either we accept the… representativeness of the employers’ union- or we do not sign the BCC
Colleagues,
We fought massively and relentlessly against powerful business and political interests, against laws and decrees, against court decisions, even against an army of repressive forces, but also against immoral thug mechanisms and practices in our workplace. Against the subversive and treacherous role of the “COSCO” -DPORT-PCT union that lives in Shame.
They are the ones who are cuddling with the employers, the ones who were not ashamed to sit side by side with the employers in the scabs’ coaches to break the strike against their hundreds of colleagues, who unitedly gave the fair fight for all.
They are the ones who are complaining hypocritically about 4-5 supposedly “lost” day wages – while they serve the interests of the employer so that we all lose 4-5 day wages every month for years!
Those who suck the employer’s candy of “illegal” strikes and called on the government to beat us! That is, the strikes for Hazardous work and for the establishment of a Health and Safety Committee with the participation of the employees, for the abolition of the continuous shifts, for the 5men posts, for the increases in our salaries and for the conversion of the contracts from daily to full employment etc but… ALL THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE SUCCESSED AND DID- AND DO WITH OUR ACTION with our fair, consistent and uncompromising struggles!
Their masks fell! and now with our struggles and conquests – we have proved in practice that them and their bosses are powerless in front of the majority of workers.
Colleagues, our massification, mobilization and victorious struggles with ENEDEP proved that the fear they were cultivating – it broke, that the employer supposedly could not pay us better – was false!
Throughout the port, throughout the Piraeus society, in every workplace everywhere in Greece, in many parts of the world, ENEDEP was embraced for its fair, consistent and uncompromising struggles of the workers! We gave and took strength from this huge wave of recognition and solidarity, we also put a little stone in the truth that only with unity and struggles come the conquests – that nothing is given to us without a fight!
Unity and rallying to our ENEDEP-COSCO Workers’ Union
To give even more strength to our fight for a better tomorrow for us and our families, to build on the foundation we have conquered!
Based on the statement of the Company Dport Services (contractor of COSCO) COSCO signed Collective Contract with wage raises of more than 20% in addition to benefits and improvement of working conditions.
