“FINTEXPORT S.A.” CARPET MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY
21 HELMOY ST., AGIOS STEFANOS, ATTICA
The factory manufactures carpets of different qualities, with wool as raw materialand exported its products abroad mainly in England, U.S.A. and Canada.
Lately, it had employed 110 workers.
During the last two years, it has started the attack on the rights and achievements of factory’s workers. Specifically, it cut milk and sandwich break that had been achieved through business contracts the previous years. It obliged the workers, with intimidating methods, to work during weekends without overtime payment and whoever resisted to this, was dismissed.
During the same period, the production had increased by 20%, due to the increase of the orders.
Then, in 2011, with the decrease of the orders, it imposed job rotation of for 4 days employment per week.
Since November 2011, it has stopped paying the current accrued salaries.
In the beginning of 2012, within the first three months, the factory paid off accrued salaries of October and November 2011.
Till May of 2012, the factory did not operate normally due to lack of raw materials and some times due to the power outage.
In Fintexport there is a factory trade union, whose Administration supported all the employers’ choices, disorientated the workers and stopped every militant moods of workers.
The Administration of the class-oriented Federation of the sector (which is aligned with PAME) has made persistent efforts, all this time, so that workers would be organized in a class-oriented and militant base and would demand their rights.
On May of 2012, these efforts began to bore fruit. A Struggle Committee was elected, through an Assembly of one part of the workers, and then about half of the workers decided to start militant mobilizations.
These workers, together with the Federation’s Administration hold a rally at the Ministry of Labor on September 2012, demanding from the political leadership financial aid and other adjustments for their relief.
Last October, elections for the new Administration of the trade union took place. Working men and women of the factory took the case into their own hands and they elected a new class-orientedadministration, expelling the employer’s trade union away from the Administration of the trade union.
The new Administration held general meetings and formulated demands to the employers:
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Payment of all the accrued salaries
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Re-operating of the factory with 5 days – 40 hours working per week and implementation of the collective agreement of the textile industry.
The employer denied the demands and suggested re-operating of the factory with 40 dismissals and payment of only one salary from the accrued. That proposal was rejected by the trade union and by the workers.
The employer made efforts to take illegally ready products from the factory’s warehouse, the trade union reacted and with the decision of the general meeting that took place on 16 November 2012, occupation of the factory took place, which was safeguarded 24 hours a day.
In this period, general meetings every Friday and two mobilizations took place. A mobilization at the Ministry of Labor was held and a demonstration took place in the area of Agios Stefanos where the factory is located.
The class-oriented forces of the sector and of the area are everyday at the factory, expressing their class-oriented solidarity to the militant workers of the Fintexport.
We call upon all the Trade Union Organizations to express their solidarity with the workers of the factory.
