Greve hazırız: Thousands of metalworkers in Turkey to participate on a strike on February 2

As soL international reports, metal workers in Turkey have declared that they will not submit to oppression in the hands of capitalist plunderers, as the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK) affiliate United Metal Workers’ Union (Birleşik Metal-İŞ) officially announced that they would strike on February 2.

The Head of the United Metal Workers’ Union Adnan Serdaroğlu said that the collective bargaining of the metal workers encompassed 180.000 workers and 180 workplaces affiliated to three trade unions in Turkey.

Thousands of workers across Greece joined PAME demonstrations against the government's new bill

A powerful message to the coalition government of SYRIZA-ANEL as well as to the employers was sent by thousands of workers, students, pensioners and unemployed people who joined the demonstrations organised by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) across Greece. 

In Athens and other Greek cities numerous rallies took place against the new antiworkers' governmental bill which was passed today by a majority of deputies at the Parliament. The bill includes an amendment which aims to abolish the sacred right of the working people to strike.

Hands Off the Right of Strike: Militant demonstrations across Greece against Government, EU and Capitalists

Militant strike demonstrations took place earlier on Friday in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities in Greece, as thousands of workers gave a decisive response against the antipeople-antiworkers' plans of the government, the EU and the big capital. 

In Athens, the demonstrators gathered at Omonoia square and marched through the center's major streets. The KKE General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas attended the rally, while the demonstrators announced a resolution regarding the prosecution of the palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi by the Israeli authorities.

KKE: "Syriza and New Democracy compete with each other on who is the best executioner of the workers' rights"

"The New Democracy party, apparently being perplexed as long as the SYRIZA-ANEL government has taken its job, bids in anti-worker proposals and competes with SYRIZA on who is the best executioner of the workers' rights" writes, among other things, a recent statement of the Press Office of the CC of the KKE. 

Earlier, in a statement, the centre-right opposition party of New Democracy (ND) had expressed disagrements with some of the provisions of the new antiworkers' bill forwarded by the government. However, ND agrees on the new law's amendment which actually tries to abolish the right of the workers to strike. 

"Hands Off the Right of Strike": PAME unionists and workers stormed the Ministry of Labour in Athens

A strong message to the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government was sent by trade unionists and workers who broke into the Ministry of Labour, after a request to meet with officials was turned down. 

The mobilization of numerous labour and workers' unions and associations began at Omonoia square in downtown Athens on Tuesday morning and ended at the Ministry of Labour where members of PAME unfolded a huge banner with the slogan "Government-big capital-EU, pay attention: Get your dirty hands off the strike. It is a workers' right". 

Greek workers on the streets: Action and strike on January 12th against the new antipeople measures

The All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) calls workers, youth, pensioners, the unemployed, farmers, the self-employed, all the people to massive, militant action. The government brings a new series of anti-workers measures. They must receive a dynamic response.

The SYRIZA-ANEL Government are imposing the demands of big capital, bringing a new round of measures of "fiscal adjustment" and of suppression of workers'-people’s struggles, with number one goal to ban our right to strike, and also to expand auctioning off of workers houses, so as to protect the profitability of business groups.

Workers in Greece respond with new nationwide strike to the antipeople policy of SYRIZA government

The Greek Government of SYRIZA (which is in alliance with the far-right ANEL party) prepares the escalation of the attack against the workers and the popular strata of Greece.

The last memorandum with its new prerequisites leads to a new round of attack against the life of the working-people families, as over the next few months the government is to complete a massive amount of anti-peoples’ measures so as to declare the supposed “end of the memorandums”. Measures already agreed with the EU-IMF-ECB and which are demanded by the industrialists, ship-owners, the bankers etc, since they serve their competitiveness and profits.

"Message for the struggle's escalation" - Militant strike mobilization in Greece against antiworkers policies

A message for the escalation of struggle against the antipeople-antiworkers policies of the SYRIZA coalition government was today's militant strike mobilizations across Greece. 

In Athens, the organised by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), demonstration began at Omonoia Square and through the city center passed towards the U.S. embassy, as a symbolic action against the recent Trump's decision on Jerusalem. 

Greece: Everyone in the strike of December 14th - Le 14 décembre tous à la grève partout!

PAME: Everyone in the strike of December 14th.

All in the strike rallies in all cities! We fight back!

Let’s give a militant response to the new measures of impoverishment of the working people!

The positive climate that the government of SYRIZA - ANEL is trying to cultivate all along this time through the tale of the “just development” does not contain anything positive for the working people, since a new wave of anti-popular measures is being planned. The "just development" that the government promotes and defends, means further assault on the life of the working-people family with further abolition of rights and advances.

General Strike on December 14th in Greece - Workers to give a powerful response to SYRIZA government

Source: All-Workers Militant Front.

Last week in Greece, the working class witnessed a series of incidents that showed a strong escalation of state oppression and employers' intimidations against workers

The workers of supermarkets in Ioannina, the students and the workers of the Universities, outside the Ministry of Education, but also the protesters in the courts against the banks auctioning off peoples’ homes, were not the first to suffer persecutions, arrests, violent repression and tear gas.

The over 18 months unpaid workers of the super markets of Ioannina who struggle for their right to work and their salaries, the students who in the year 2017 literally demand a decent meal and the workers who protect their homes, were within a few hours targeted by the SYRIZA-ANEL government.

KKE sends powerful message to Tsipras' government: "The right to strike is non-negotiable, don't dare to touch it!"

Regarding the SYRIZA-ANEL government's amendment about the right to strike- which provoked the militant response of Trade Unions and workers - the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece issued the following statement:

"The SYRIZA-ANEL government broke any record of political impudence and nastiness, bringing, like a thief in the Parliament - and within an irrelevant law proposal in order to vote it quickly- an amendment in order to begin the rupture of the working class' biggest conquest, which is the right to strike. 

SYRIZA government withdraws anti-strike amendment after Trade Unions' militant reaction

Workers-Trade Unionists invade the Ministry
of Labour in Athens.

The SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government was forced after militant mobilization by PAME and Trade Unions to withdraw a shameful amendment on workers’ strike and other labour issues only hours after they were tabled in parliament. Earlier today (Tuesday), demonstrators supported by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) invaded the Ministry of Labor in central Athens, as an act of protest against the antiworker-antipeople measures of the government.

The government's amendment proposes that for a union to go on strike, at least 50% plus one of active union members must agree. In fact, this measure is a step towards the restriction of the workers' right to strike and consists an escalation of the government-EU's attack against the labour movement.

Against Black Friday: Amazon workers in Germany and Italy are going on strike

More than 500 Amazon employees in Europe will go on strike on Black Friday in a bid to win higher pay from the retailer, according to trade unions.

Large numbers of employees in Germany and Italy will stay home for one of the busiest shopping days of the year in a bid to win concessions from their employer.

Workers at Amazon's main Italian distribution hub posted a statement saying that they would walk out after attempts to secure bonuses from management broke down.

McDonald's workers on historic strike in Britain - Solidarity with their just struggle

Their solidarity towards the strike of the workers at McDonald's fast food chain in Britain expressed labor-trade unions in Greece and Turkey. 

The Trade union of workers in Catering, Hotels, Tourism of Athens issued a statement expressing its solidarity to their colleagues working to McDonald’s in the UK, who went on strike earlier this week, struggling for better salaries and abolition of the “zero hour contracts”. 

More specifically, the union states:

PAME: The anti-workers attack across Europe is unified, lasting and continuous

On the occasion of the visit of French President Macron to Greece, PAME issued the following statement:

The “growth” of the profits of business groups, the competitiveness of capital requires the attack on workers’ rights and gains. 

Therefore, irrespective of the country and the political label of each government, European Union and the political parties of the capital promote anti-workers’ reforms that target to reduce wages, pensions etc., and at the same time to put obstacles (if not to totally ban) in the Collective Action and Demands of Workers, in the trade union rights and freedoms of the working class.

Either with memorandums or without, the antiworkers’ attack across Europe is unified, lasting and continuous.

National Strike: Tourism workers in Greece raised their voice against modern slavery

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.

Anti-workers rage by SYRIZA's newspaper “Avgi” challenges the right to strike!

In an anti-workers delirium that even the right-wing, neoliberal press would envy, SYRIZA party's newspaper “Avgi” launched a vociferous attack against the working people's right to strike! In an article published on 28/6, the newspaper shamelessly attacked the striking mobilizations of the municipal sanitation workers by reproducing the most reactionary arguments of the bourgeois press. Trying to justify the anti-people, anti-worker policy of the SYRIZA coalition government, “Avgi” characterizes the strike as the “ultimate medium” (!) which, according to the newspaper, should not be used frequently by the workers.

Solidarity with the striking workers at FIAT factory in Serbia

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), which is the militant voice of 92 million workers in 126 countries all over the world, stands firmly by the side of the 2.000 workers of the factory of FIAT Chrysler Automobiles, automobile assembly plant in Kragujevac, Serbia, who are on strike since Tuesday 27 June 2017.

The workers have taken strike action against the intensification of work, which increased after numerous workers were dismissed from the factory, while the factory tries to produce a high number of cars per day. Their main demands also include wage increase and transport allowance.

Greek tourism industry: Unpaid labour, starvation wages and huge profits for the monopoly groups

What lies behind the luxurious and idyllic facade of Greece's tourism industry? The answer is that tourism consists another field for monopolies' profitability, based on unpaid workers, layoffs, unsourced workers, starvation wages, lack of collective agreements etc. 

This is the actual meaning of "economic growth" that the SYRIZA-ANEL government, as well as the New Democracy and the other bourgeois parties, promote. 

Even if thousands of tourists arrive in Greece every day, hundreds of employees work daily to the tourism industry with humiliating salaries and exhausting shifts that last from dawn till dusk. The average - daily room rate on all 4-5-star hotels is equal to the salary of a waiter! In a tourist country like Greece, where 25 million of tourists are expected this summer, hotel workers cannot afford a decent vacation and relaxing period. This is Capitalism.

Statements by the WFTU and PAME: Solidarity with the bus drivers' strike in Sydney

World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU):

The World Federation of Trade Unions, representing 92 million workers in the 5 continents, expresses its solidarity with Sydney bus drivers who are on strike as a response to the government’s announcement for a privatization program of bus services in the city’s south and inner west.

The privatization plan was announced, despite the fact that the government assured the bus drivers in writing that the bus route will not be privatized. According to the strikers, the privatization will cost the job of 1,200 drivers, will reduce the bus routes and stops and will adversely affect the quality of service and the maintenance of the buses.