Dear comrades of PAME,

 RMT expresses our solidarity with your on going struggles in Greece and strongly condemnsthe decision  to imprison those trade unionists who participated in the 9 month strike at Manessis.

As you know RMT has previously expressed our solidarity with struggles in the steel works, and have participated in demonstrations outside the Greek embassy in London.

In Britain too, basic trade union freedoms are increasingly under attack and increasingly repressive measures are being taken against working class organisation in a clear expression of class justice.

RMT stands shoulder to shoulder with the steel workers, with PAME and with the working class of Greece in general.

Yours in Solidarity

Mick Cash

Acting General Secretary

Dear colleagues and comrades,  

You are all aware of the heroic struggle of steelworkers in our country that lasted nine months and gave lessons of power, determination, strength, unity, pride, against employers, the state and its apparatuses, revealing the inhuman face and the decay of the exploitative system.

Α tremendous struggle supported by the class oriented trade union movement in our country and met a vast moral and economic solidarity from unions around the world. After an intervention staged by the repressive apparatuses of a government that implements the doctrine of law and order, the avant-guarde workers were dragged to court.

An unacceptable court decision sentenced 24 steelworkers in prison time from 21 to 23 months, revealing that Justice is not blind, but the guardian of the business interests that live off the exploitation of workers. This unacceptable decision confirms that class struggle is what really scares the rotten exploitative system.

Many similar decisions have been taken throughout the history of the labour movement proving that the bourgeoisie and its state have created several mechanisms to repress workers’ struggles and all those who fight for their rights.

The bourgeois state sentenced steelworkers in order to condemn their heroic strike, their militant example, their working class solidarity. It wants to intimidate those who will even think to fight and claim their rights.

But the heroic struggle can not be slandered, can not be condemned. It has taken its place in history, in the minds of thousands of workers who struggle against monopolies. It has shown the way for the working class to free itself from the chains of exploitation. The motto of this struggle was “all Greece – a Steelwork”, which captured the content of their struggle and predominated in all militant demonstrations of the class oriented trade union movement in Greece and throughout the world.

PAME thanks once more all the unions and the workers who generously offered their solidarity.

We call trade unions around the world to express their solidarity and to condemn this despicable decision.

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