A new Collective Labour Agreement for shipbuilding and ship repair workers was signed on March 27 between the Athens Metal and Shipbuilding Industry Trade Union and the employers’ association, the Association of Shipbuilding Industry Enterprises (SENAVI).

The Union noted that

In addition to securing all our gains to date, the Collective Agreement for shipbuilding workers provides for increases of more than 9% on average.

More specifically:

• 7 hours, 5 days, 35 hours per work week (with two 15-minute breaks during working hours).
• 100% increase in overtime from the first hour.
• Ban on working more than 10 hours per day.
• Leave days, holiday pay and Christmas-Easter bonuses.

“This Collective Contract is the result of a difficult, long effort and hard struggles of our union, with all of our colleagues actively participating, both in the formulation of demands and forms of struggle, through mass general assemblies in all workplaces.

It is an effort that began in 2017 with the aim of restoring the collective bargaining agreements and recovering the losses from the capitalist crisis and continues every year with the aim of improving our living standards and working conditions.

Our struggle for the signing of this Collective Contract is also part of the general struggle of our union in every factory for the signing of company-level collective agreements.

Our goal is that no worker works without a collective agreement, without structured labour rights.

In the coming period, without illusions, we are preparing, armed with the determination and unity of the metalworkers, to fight for the implementation and the declaration of the Collective Agreement as compulsory, which has been prevented by all governments to date.”