Source: All-Workers Militant Front (PAME).
With militant demonstrations and picket lines in front of big hotels, the class unions held successfully the National Strike of Workers in Tourism, on Thursday, July 20. The Tourism workers in many cities all over Greece and especially in tourist areas like Corfu, Crete, Rhodes and more, went on strike.
The main strike rally took place in Athens, where the picket lines and the workers of many big hotels met. The strike had great success in hotels like the Metropolitan, Athens Hilton, Νovotel and Royal Olympic. The strike rally took place in front of the Ministry of Labour, protesting against the anti-workers legislation, especially for the young workers, students and apprentices. The rally also stopped in front of the National Union of Tourism, the association of tourism enterprises, where the unions wrote in red paint “Here are those who drink the workers’ blood”, and demanded National Collective Agreement, imposed to all tourism enterprises and hotels.
The so called National Federation of Tourism Workers, (member of the leadership of the GSEE, the ETUC affiliate in Greece) called for participation in the strike in Tourism yesterday.
Of course, this union did nothing in order to prepare and support the strike. As GSEE, they have also accepted all the wage cuts and the antiworkers’ policies of the Governments, EU, IMF.
This led for their main rally in Athens yesterday, to have zero (0) participants. Not even the president of the union, bothered to appear. Below, is the photo of their rally. This is the true picture. NOT even ONE person participated.
After some time, they just took down the stage and left.
This is the reality about the forces of class collaboration, the ETUC. This is the condition they have created in the trade union movement. No action. No struggles. No connection with the workers.