On Wednesday, April 15, trade unions and Federations demonstrated at the Ministry of Labour, and expressed their opposition to the so-called “social dialogue”, which the government has begun with the compromised trade unions and the employers’ organizations. Here is the Memo delivered by the Trade Unions to the Minister
Memo to the Minister of Labour
Mr. Minister.
Workers and their unions have a fixed and non-negotiable demand:
Restore collective agreements and the minimum wage to 751 euros by law NOW.
Any other approach from the government side, serves the employers who exploit the anti-labor arsenal to keep workers’ wages and rights destroyed. That is the goal of the meeting of the social partners and therefore we condemn it.
After all, we have experienced what it means to discuss such issues in the “social dialogue” the last 20 year. We experienced the disastrous results in every aspect of the life of the working family. Its results to antiworkers’ reforms in industrial relations, insurance rights, cuts in health, education, welfare, even to trade union and democratic rights.
Your attempt to cultivate to the workers, through such practices, a stance of waiting, can not and will not remain without response, because the workers have neither time nor money. In contrast we have experience and memory. The measures that were brutally imposed on the workers the last five years of the capitalist crisis leave no room for patience.With persistence and organization will continue the struggle to restore the huge losses suffered to workers’ income during the years of crisis.Flexible forms of employment (slave trade-outsourcing, part-time, job rotation) and individual contracts dominate, undermine the minimum wage. The elimination of all these forms, with full time, steady jobs are the demands of the workers.
We will be against any attempt to postpone even the crumbs; you today discussed in this dialogue-fraud, with –the so called- red lines. Only solution is the immediate restoration of the minimum wage to 751 euros and collective agreements NOW by law. The fight to dismantle the entire antiworkers’ arsenal and satisfy the workers-people’s needs will be continuous and progressive.
The Trade Unions of Workers in: Construction, Medicine-Drug Industries, Textile, PEMEN, STEFENSON, PEEMAGEN, PEPRN, Print Industries, EPPEA, Accountants, Catering-Tourism-Hotels, Electricians, SETIP, Private Hospitals, Musicians
The Federations: Construction, Food and Drinks, Press and Paper, Accountants, Textile, Medicine Industries, Pensioners and the Regional Trade Union Centre of Lavrio
Photos of the Protest at:
https://plus.google.com/photos/111424066969409429174/albums/6137910754646423905
