Strengthening the class-oriented response in factories and workplaces. Solidarity with the struggle of steel workers who are on strike.
Working men and women, unemployed people, young people,
Since October there is a major striking struggle in process at Aspropirgos(outskirt of Athens). The striking workers of Helliniki Halivourgia (Greek Steel Industry) teach us, through their struggle, the lesson of class-oriented dignity and pride, and show the way of an honest, hard and uncompromised struggle against the united block of capital.
The dynamic class-oriented struggle of the steel workers shows more clearly the conflict between two incompatible worlds. Troika, industrialists, big monopolies the government and the political parties of plutocracy, the governmental and employers’ trade unionism, the judicial system, suppression forces, the majority of media constitute a common front aligned with the aims of the industrialist Manesis (the owner of Greek Steel Industry). Against this black front, the striking steel workers, the workers who do not bend to their knees, the popular strata who suffer everyday stand up proudly.
The strike of the steel workers reveals that troika, industrialists, monopolies, government are afraid. They are afraid of the organized struggle, the class-oriented conflict and solidarity. They fear people joining the trade unions, organizing themselves at workplaces. PAME supported the steel workers’ struggle, PAME was the pioneer at the growing climate of solidarity and the transmission of the spark of their struggle in every factory and workplace. PAME supports the steel workers’ struggle, placing its trust on the centre of their struggle which is their trade union, on the forms of struggle that the trade union chooses. Some people, who discovered the steel workers struggle’ after many days, accuse PAME of inciting their struggle. All these, who believe so, either they want to or not, coincide with Manesis and Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) and in fact undermine this heroic struggle.
Either with the capital or with the workers
Today at Helliniki Hallivourgia the position of every political party, every wing and every force is being judged and revealed- which side every force is on, in practice. With Manesis and the employers or with the steel workers. Against the forces that stand consistently, support and express their solidarity, a large front of forces that undermine and fight the steel workers’ struggle is also raised. The most terrible slanders and insidious accusations are launched through the arsenal of their black propaganda. With suspicious anonymous reports and reactionary, signed, statements of members of the Parliament and organizations, it is mentioned that on the one hand the steel workers’ struggle is a “blind collision” and that on the other hand this unwavering struggle “will shut down the factory”. These are arguments that target to bend the tenacity and the class-oriented position of the striking steel workers.
Now it is necessary to differentiate friends from opponents. It is the time that every worker must choose which side he/ she is on, and who to leave behind. Every worker must differentiate his/her position from the dangerous forces for his/her interests. From forces that support only supposedly the steel workers’ struggle and in fact are at the opposite side, together with the employers.
The steel workers themselves exposed through their actions and resistance the subjugated leaderships of GSEE, the invisible Metal Federation and a number of Federations and Regional Trade Union Centers. For a long time and while the striking struggle of the steel workers was in progress and the solidarity climate expanded continuously the governmental and employers’ trade unionism forces didn’t say anything to express support.
The struggles, which they afterwards were forced to enter, were against their will, against the interests of the big monopolies and industrialists they serve. Under conditions of pressure and escalation of the class-oriented conflict, they reveal their true nature, their role is revealed. The negative response and attitude of the Regional Trade Union Centre of Volos expressed to the proposal of the forces of PAME for a declaration of a solidarity strike for the steel workers on strike at Aspropirgos and the metal industry factories, is a characteristic example expressing clearly which side these forces are on.
An equivalent position was held by SYN-SYRIZA (opportunists), at the Regional Trade Union Centre of Volos, refusing the proposal for strike. To justify their refusal they claimed that “strikes are in favour of the employers and don’t have a result”. The same time at the factory of Helliniki Halivourgia at Aspropirgos, they wear their “strikers’ clothes”, using a double tongue, trying to balance between two boats, trying to create a striker’s profile in front of the cameras, shouting for solidarity and victory of the strikers.
They report in their newspaper that “there can be no trade unionism without flexibility and tactical retreats, moreover when the recession conditions have been sweeping the manufacturing sector”. Without any trace of dignity they identify Manesis’ interests with the interests of the workers. Namely, that since due to the fact that Manesis is being pressed by the crisis, workers must subjugate and compromise with the employers’ plans, must work as slaves and accept fully the consequences of a crisis that they never created.
Front against the restriction, opposition and submission voices
Working men and women,
PAME calls you to continue with new strength to support the steel workers’ struggle in every sector and factory and at the same time to strengthen our alert.
You must keep clear from the voices that speak firmly against PAME and slander the class-oriented movement and the workers’ struggles. They are these who attack PAME and the class-oriented forces at major strikes, as state mechanisms, they work according to plan and they are used for the attack against strike demonstrations and for the oppression of the class-oriented movement. They are the same who speak about true solidarity with the struggle of the striking steel workers whereas they perform show-off appearances outside the factory, they are these who give struggle lessons with highly theoretical analysis and at the same time they are permanently absent from the large industrial zones, factories and workplaces. They know nothing about the crime at workplaces and simultaneously they speak with audacity about fierce strikes and riots, they conceal themselves behind harmonious and vigorous slogans in order to justify their submission to the present, their conscious strike break.
We must have an open front with all these forces that poison with ideologies and hatred the working class ranks. They are enemies of the struggles and stable defenders of the exploitation system, they are the carriers of the most reactionary attitudes, they disseminate defeatism and scaremongering about the success of mobilisations, they hate the class-oriented struggle, they complain about the lost capital of entrepreneurs and slander the struggles that supposedly cause the shut down of factories. They call you to subjugate constantly, to reduce the value of your labour force and continuously lower the bar of your needs.
Dozens of sites and blogs on the Internet serve the war that has been declared by the plutocracy and are used as weapons against every class-oriented voice and struggle. Specialized in slander and distortion, under covered with anonymity, they create virtual realities, spread false news, slander struggles, try to alter and defile the class-oriented movement and its mobilisations. Anonymous articles in every direction place PAME and the organized class-oriented response in the center of the attack, spreading lies, slanders and mud.
Struggles are not organized in sites and blogs. At the virtual reality of internet discussions and of the prominent theoretical generality, everyone can provoke, exaggerate and create fictional images. It is a preferential field and method mainly of all those who are never seen in workplaces, of the strikebreakers, the compromised and the provocateurs. All these who are missing from the places that bear exploitation, where courage and guts are needed, replace their absence with internet revolutions and hard electronic struggles.
All Greece a Steel Industry
Working men and women,
The new social dialogue is a pretence of another prescribed loss for the working class. Today it is more obvious that the steel workers’ struggle is a struggle of all the working class. Now all together, employers, government, PASOK – N.D. – LAOS and Troika want to implement in all sectors, all these Manesis tried to implement in the steel industry, to take all the necessary measures for them, to assure cheaper labour force for the monopolies.
It is essential to enter a front and class-oriented conflict with the employers and their mechanisms, to be vigilant in every factory. It is essential to give them the message that every day and at every workplace such a part of workers will be born and will strengthen, that they will not be able to put their hands on. Every worker has the duty to disentangle himself/herself from the forces that hold him/her captive. The emancipation of workers from the governmental and employers’ trade unionism and the ideology of the capital is a duty. Today it is not enough to give marches and demonstrations. The direction of the movement, the alliances made, the common targeting of the real opponent, the alteration and escalation of the forms of struggle, chosen by the people’s movement, away from the traps set by the class opponent, play the decisive role.
The disapproval of these forces will hurt the capital and its governments. It weakens and deprives them of an important weapon for the implementation of their anti-labour planning. The struggles will be tough but there is no other choice. Either these or we! The strengthening of PAME, the strengthening of the ranks of the class-oriented conflict, creates the conditions for the reconstruction of the labour movement which will not only set obstacles for the anti-labour policies but it will create the conditions for the overthrow of the power of monopolies.
