With a big demonstration in Athens on Saturday, January 25, the workers of LARKO Metal Industry protested against the plans of the governments to completely privatize the LARCO Nickel Industry, one of the biggest producers of nickel globally.

LARCO, the General Mining and Metallurgical Company SA, known as LARCO, is a ferro-nickel production company in Greece with mines in the region of Evia and production sites in many cities in the center of Greece. The Greek governments have been underfunding the industry so as to bring it to a dead end and to impose complete privatization of the industry.

Because of the underfunding there is continuous worsening of the working Health and Safety conditions, with daily workers’ accidents. Only last week 2 workers were killed in LARCO Industry.  At the same time there is great insecurity to the workers whose jobs are not secured and many, especially the young workers who work under contractors.

The workers’ Unions in LARCO and the Regional Unions of their area took the initiative for a big demonstration in Athens to protest against the Governments’ plans to completely privatize the Industry. The class unions of Athens welcomed the demonstrators during their protest which concluded with a big rally in front of the Parliament.

The Regional Union of Fthiotida, where LARCO factory is located, noted:

“the great rally in Athens, with thousands of workers, and all the initiatives that have been developed so far, are a weapon for the continuation of the struggle, for the LARCO workers and for the whole working class, as on Saturday, Athens was shaken by the voice of the workers who were saying ” hands down from LARCO ”, ” LARCO belongs to the workers and not to the capitalists ”, and we demanded state funding to ensure the functioning of LARCO and all jobs.”

Video: https://youtu.be/r-_-jNjugJc

Photos: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmKXZSwW