The organized fight of the of the ENEDEP union of the dockworkers of Piraeus port, against the Chinese monopoly of COSCO, brought the first positive results. With the document 4151/2018 the dockworkers are included to the BAE category (of Dangerous and Unhealthy Professions) and this means that the COSCO Company must immediately increase the payroll rights of the dockworkers and their social security.
Basic organizer and the soul of this fight of the workers at the docks of Piraeus port was the Union of ENEDEP. It has proven that even against big monopolies, governments, Media, justice courts and other mechanisms, the workers with the strength of the organization, with massive, collective processes, they can succeed.
This first conquest of the workers of COSCO gives the strength to continue and escalate the fight to sign Collective Contract that will improve their lives and the conditions of work for the workers at the docks.
It also shows the true power of the workers when they decide collectively to take their lives and their future in their hands and fight for their rights.
It shows the true power of the workers that united in their unions, organize their struggle, claim and fight against the employers and their governments.
It shows the true power that the workers have when they don’t let misery, disappointment and inaction to dominate.
This important conquest of the workers at the docks of Piraeus, also exposes certain forces within the trade union movement, like the GSEE (ETUC Member), that have separated from any kind of struggle and consider Strike action to be an “out of date” form of struggle. It exposes everyone that cultivates defeatism and compromise, speaking for ineffectiveness of the struggle and promote submission of the workers to the demands and the objectives of the employers. It exposes all those that when the workers of COSCO where giving the fight for the strike, they were nowhere to be found, they didn’t even make a sound, not even a small declaration of support.
The important conquest of the workers of COSCO is an important win of the militant forces and trade unions, from Greece and internationally, of every worker that all those months has been on the side of the workers of COSCO expressing in practice their class solidarity.
It is also important the experience that all workers gain from this fight. Experience that shows that the fight can be for a long time, hard, can even have set backs, but the workers have strengths that can move us very far.
Even more, when COSCO uses an apparatus of mechanisms that the employers have in their hands to attack the workers. The anti-workers legislation, the anti-strike laws that SYRIZA Government imposed, the justice courts, the tv channels and the newspapers, ministries, even the creation of “unions” with the goal to divide the workers, to confuse and create obstacles against the rightful struggle of the workers.
But when the workers are united to their union, with a steady and militant orientation, when they themselves with their meetings they talk, they propose, they vote, they decide and they realize the decisions, then they are forging a unity and a decisiveness that can break the minions of the employers.
This positive development for the workers of COSCO has created the conditions for escalation, to strengthen the fight for even better results and in other branches and at the port of Piraeus.
The workers should build in this first conquest so as to continue the fight for the satisfaction of their rightful demands.
We take strength from this positive development for the dock workers, we give all our strength for the success of the 14th of November strike, for signing Collective Contracts
