Working – unemployed- young women,

 The three-party government tightens the noose around the neck of the working-class families through the fines, the seizures, the closures of public organizations that provide social policy services, the dismissals in the public sector and the merciless attacks they have launched against wages and pensions. In the background of this bad economic situation, many working-class families submit applications to municipal Day Nurseries of this time.

Also this year thousands of children will find themselves excluded from the Day Nurseries due to recent experience and the continuous policies of degradation, reduction and abolition of the public structures and services and the dismissals of personnel once again.

This fact creates huge problems to the working families, since their income is not enough for private Day Nursery, even if both parents have jobs. At the same time, in most municipalities there is a precondition that both parents should have jobs in order for their application to be accepted and as a result unemployed parents have more difficulties in the process of searching for a job.

However, even if their children will be accepted in Day Nurseries, parents with an average monthly income are forced to pay contributions for day nurseries that reach up to 120€ -150€, the same time that they are bleeding from the huge taxation, the increases in electric bills, the fines, the high prices and simultaneously they are unpaid for many months. Moreover, since the contributions for the day nurseries are determined according to the income of the previous year, there are many people who were dismissed or suffered major reductions in wages during this year, so they are trying by all means to obtain the contributions at the beginning of the month under the threat of deletion of their child from the day nursery if they do not pay.

It is indicative that in the last three years the applications have been tripled for the program implemented by the Greek Company of Local Development and Authorities (private company of the municipalities), funded by the NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework), where only mothers who work under flexible forms of employment have the right to apply. The approval of the application for this program ensures the entry of the children in the day nurseries and in the Creative Activity Centers without paying contributions. However, this program does not satisfy the continuously increasing needs; last year more than 53,000 children found themselves out from this program.

Simultaneously, the antilabor processes of the government and the E.U. also attack the Day Nurseries, since the under-funding, the dismissals, the flexible forms of employment and the short-term contracts create particularly difficult conditions for the workers in the day nurseries. There are many cases where a teacher is alone in a class with 10 and more infants or with 25-30 small children (1-4 years old), where there are not adequate portions of red meat for feeding the children, where there is not the necessary teaching material, where in many cases even the buildings are unsuitable, having stairs or without having schoolyards. All these lead many day nurseries to closure, increasing the number of the children who will not enter and the number of the unemployed educators.

 We must not accept this situation.

 We must collectively respond. Especially the young couples who find it difficult to cope with when unemployment is huge, the wages are miserable and the situation becomes constantly intolerable.

 We call the working mothers and all the workers, the working-class families, the workers in the day nurseries to a unified struggle so that no child who has applied will be left out of the day nurseries. This year’s registrations must become the starting point for the creation of a front of struggle for the needs of the children and of the working-class family for free and public pre-school education for all the children of the workers, for humane working conditions for the educators in day nurseries.

 We demand:

•  Free – Public – Modern and Safe Day Nurseries with building adequacy, suitability, infrastructure, quality of food.

• Abolition of contributions for day nurseries.

• Full-time, qualified and sufficient staff with a unified network of pre-school education and a unified pedagogical program.

• No Day Nursery must close. New ones must be created, wherever are not sufficient.

• The total of the applications must be accepted and all the children of the Greek people and immigrants must be admitted without terms and conditions.

• No dismissal must take place. For all the contract workers the forms of employment must change into full-time and permanent employment without terms and conditions.