The workers of the Recycling Factory in Heraklion Crete are preparing to return to their work victorious, after 165 days of hard struggle. For more than five months, the workers fought for their right to work, having on their side dozens of trade unions and the people of the region of Crete, but also all over Greece.

The contractor company “Waste Solution”, which took over the factory last November, dismissed workers who worked in the “Recycling Factory” from 5 to 10 years, in order to replace them with “cheaper” ones, without rights.

The decisive position of workers who struggled as a fist with their trade union and the solidarity of the people of the city, led the company to cancel the layoffs. Specifically, the employer accepted the return of the dismissed workers with the same wages they had in October.

 In their announcement the workers note:

 We, the workers of the recycle factory in Heraklion Crete, after 165 days of hard, class struggle against the employers and their servants, we come out of this struggle victorious. We come out victorious because, despite the efforts of the contractor to recycle the workers for cheaper and subjugated workforce, we stood on our feet and fought, as we have been taught to do, together with our trade union and the forces rallied in PAME, for steady jobs, decent wages and rights.

 This struggle leaves legacy. It is a basis for the next struggles that are coming. It is a struggle that broke arguments such as “nothing can be done”, “it is a law, since it has been voted it cannot change”, “we have crisis; we must have a job even without rights, wages etc”. It is a struggle which proves that even in conditions of deep crisis, when the workers are united, organized, with meetings, committees within the workplace, with their trade union correctly oriented in the struggle, they can win.

 “Our next step is the preparation and the success of the 48-hour strike, when the new draft law for social security is brought to the Parliament”.