PAME wins the first place at the 28th Congress of the Centre of Athens Labor Unions

The “Democratic Militant Cooperation” (DAS), the list which includes communists and other class-oriented forces rallied in PAME, won the first place in the elections for the new Board of the Centre of Athens Labor Unions (EKA) that took place on 31st May and 1st June.

EKA is the biggest territorial organization of trade unions in Greece in which more than 450 unions are registered representing hundreds of thousands of working people who work in the Greek capital.

1422 representatives took part in the elections for the board that comprises of 31 members representing 113,722 workers that took part in the elections of their unions. The valid votes were 1,414. It should be noted that there were 330 fewer representatives than at the Congress in 2010. In addition, PASKE, the grouping of the social democratic party PASOK, participated with 2 lists. DAKE, the grouping of the conservative party of ND, also appeared with two lists, one of which was “New Course”. The results were the following:

Fadomduck2: NON OMNIS MORIAR: ΝΤΟΚΙΜΑΝΤΕΡ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΑΠΕΡΓΙΑ ΣΤ...

Fadomduck2: NON OMNIS MORIAR: ΝΤΟΚΙΜΑΝΤΕΡ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΑΠΕΡΓΙΑ ΣΤ...: Η σκηνοθέτιδα Θεοδοσια Γραμματικού ασχολήθηκε και κατέγραψε από την αρχή της, την επική απεργία της Ελληνικής Χαλυβουργίας, με σκοπό να τ...

International solidarity with the workers and the people of Syria.

PAME condemns the recent Israeli airstrikes against Syria. The attack of the Israeli government against the Syrian people is a part of the plan of USA – NATO – E.U. for the immediate imperialist intervention against Syria and Iran.

The main aim of the imperialists is to control the raw materials of the region and the energy transport routes.

The developments in the region of Eastern Mediterranean become continuously more dangerous for a more generalized war.

It is proved how dangerous for the Greek people is the participation of our country in NATO and E.U. which support in every way the war actions of Israel against Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

PAME expresses its international solidarity with the workers and the people of Syria. The Syrian people, and nobody else, have the right to decide for its present and its future.

We call the trade unions to condemn the imperialist attack against Syria.

The class-oriented trade union movement must strengthen its struggle so that our country will not be dragged in the new imperialist wars of the USA, E.U. and NATO which are prepared against Syria and Iran and to demand:

The military exercises and all the agreements of military cooperation with Israel must be cancelled.

All the military bases of NATO in Greece must close now!

PAME

Strike at the MEVGAL factory in Athens

MEVGAL is a company which operates in the Greek dairy industry. It employs 1,100 workers of all specialities. It is the 3rd largest company in the dairy industry and it exports to E.U. countries. MEVGAL dairy company has got seven factories, in Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Larissa, Xanthi, Katerini, Halkidiki and two subsidiaries in Volos and Chania.

The workers in the MEVGAL factory in Athens are on strike for 10 days, demanding their accrued wages of four months that the employer owes them.

The last General Assembly held with great participation and a unanimous decision was taken for the continuation of their strike struggle until the payment of all the accrued wages by the company. The workers are determined to continue their struggle until they will win and to throw away the employer’s efforts to blackmail their return to work without the satisfaction of their fair request.

PAME salutes the MEVGAL workers who give a hard but proud struggle and calls the trade unions to express their class-oriented solidarity.

PAME

The CC of the KKE organized a two-day Scientific Conference of Bertolt Brecht

The two-day Scientific Conference organized by the CC of the KKE on the leading intellectual, playwright, poet and director, Bertolt Brecht was concluded on Sunday afternoon (28/4). The GS of the CC of the KKE, cde Dimitris Koutsoumpas made a greetings speech at the conference as well as the Secretary of the CC of KNE, Theodoris Chionis. The Conference was held in Athens, in the packed conference hall of the CC of the KKE. A rich programme of activity had been organized by the CC of the KKE in all the previous months, with theatrical productions, film showings of B. Brecht’s works which were attended by thousands of workers who came into contact with the important work of the German communist writer, poet and playwright.

In his greetings’ speech , the GS of the CC of the KKE, D. Koutsoumpas noted amongst other things: “ In recent years we began this effort to organize scientific conferences, dedicated to the work and personality of major, pioneering intellectuals-artists, such as Giannis Ritsos and Kostas Varnalis. This year we are taking a daring step- I would characterize it a leap- by dedicating the Conference to Bertolt Brecht, the greatest playwright of the 20th century, director, poet, intellectual, politically committed to the cause of liberating the world from the exploitation of man by man. Brecht was a great communist intellectual, a multi-talented artist. He gave all his strength, concentrating on the problems of humanity, to showing –through his work- the path of liberation of man from class exploitation and war as one of the forms of this class exploitation(…) Brecht, committed to the struggle, displayed unique courage, the courage to place politics in art, politics as an integral element of art and vice-versa.”

Mass and dynamic Mayday strike rallies of PAME in Athens and 80 other Greek cities.

The Mayday strike rally of PAME in Syntagma Sq., outside the parliament, was mass and dynamic, sending the message that this strike battle was dynamically and tirelessly waged by the workers, the unemployed and the militant rallies of the self-employed (PASEVE), the poor farmers (PASY), the students (MAS) and the women (OGE) from the popular strata, in every workplace, in every neighbourhood. Mass Mayday strike rallies were also held in 80 other cities all over Greece. Thus an answer was given to the government’s attempts to move the holiday or strike of Mayday to another date in order to deal a blow against the historic messages of May 1st in the consciousness of the working class, which decisively demonstrated that “May 1st is not a holiday, it is a strike. It is the red day of labour, it is the bloodstained day of the workers of Chicago and the workers all over the world.”

The contingents of the trade unions, pensioners’ unions, self-employed associations, the student unions, the women’s associations, the People’s Committees and Unemployed Committees in Athens reached Syntagma Sq. with slogans and a militant atmosphere.

A large delegation of the CC of the KKE participated in the rally, headed by the GS of the CC, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, who stated that: “We would like to address a call for the people to rally with the KKE, so that the way out for the capitalist crisis in favour of the people and not again in favour of the monopolies, the EU and their system, becomes a reality.”

The rally began with a greetings’ speech by Ilia Ahmet, an immigrant from Bangladesh, who read the letter of the 200 immigrant agricultural workers from the strawberry fields of Manolada, who rose up against their bosses, having worked unpaid for months in wretched conditions. The letter of the workers to the strike rally of PAME was a message which recognized the historic contribution of PAME to their struggle.

May Day Strike demonstrations of PAME in 80 cities all over Greece

During the massive, central demonstration of Athens, a letter of the fighting, Bangladeshi, workers from the fields of Manolada was read, and it was saluted by representative of the CTC of Cuba.

The main speaker expressed PAME’s internationalist solidarity to the workers of the PEUGEOT factory, in France, who decided to continue their strike for 15th week!

It was also highlighted:

What is of the utmost importance to reach as main conclusion is: no legislation, no government ever gave away any rights to our class. The working class had never anything being given for free, the working class, at all times, imposed its rights, under its own laws, the laws of class struggle, of its organization, of its uprisings!

The labour movement history, in Greece, as well as internationally, is full of examples of which line is useful and effective for the workers. The employers’ and governmental trade unionism, the line of class collaboration, of social dialogues mean only subjugation, retreat, diminishing the demands of the workers. The 8hour workday, the social insurance, the collective contracts, all those achievements have in their core the endless efforts of the class oriented movement; they bear the sign of class struggle.

PAME

The struggle of the Greek and immigrants is common against our common enemy.

Immigrant agricultural workers from Bangladesh and from other countries are facing the profound class exploitation every day. They work for months unpaid, forced to be essentially thrown in unhealthy – extremely dangerous plastic accommodation, in the fields, next to animal huts.

They are trying to survive, to demand their wages, their daily labor. The response of employers was to murderous attack them. They continue the exploitation and the exclusion from the right to work of those immigrants who dare to demand the payment of their wages.

PAME, once again expressed the class solidarity with the agricultural workers of Manolada in practice, with the presence of the WFTU.

The food that it carried, which exceeded the1.5 ton, is just a sample of the intervention of the class-oriented forces in the everyday problems of survival and towards the need for organization, assertion and resistance against the system and the mechanisms that gain great profits by the exploitation of the workers in Greece, in Europe, in Bangladesh and around the world.

Our slogans

“All for one and one for all”

“We will not become slaves of the 21st century”

“Greek and immigrant workers United”

46 years since the military dictatorship of the 21st April

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, spoke at the event of the Attica Party Organization which took place on Monday 22nd April with the theme “46 years since the military dictatorship of the 21st of April”.

The event was held in the Eleftheria Park in Athens which was jam-packed with people.

The GS of the CC of the KKE stressed amongst other things in his speech:

“At today’s event of the Attica Party Organization in Eleftheria Park the former EAT-ESA [ military police] base, we honour the militants of the anti-dictatorship struggle, the communists and other militants who were murdered, tortured, imprisoned, sent to places of exile, we honour the communists of the illegal organizations of the KKE and KNE, of the other organizations of the people’s and youth movement (…)

A party capable of acting in conditions of parliamentary democracy without losing sight of the main thing, its objective, but it is also capable of acting in conditions when the developments will bring the people and the labour movement face to face with the mechanisms of state repression and violence, with the mechanisms that restrict its activity, with the strengthening of anti-communism.”

When the forces of the Party of the European Left and opportunism support the partition of Cyprus

In the framework of the discussion of Turkey’s progress report, regarding the Cypriot question in the European Parliament last week, the Green group, represented by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, denounced the EU because it did not pressure Cyprus for re-unification. And so he tabled an amendment which demanded that the President of the European Council “invite two observers to represent the Turkish-Cypriot community in the European Parliament, in light of the next European parliamentary elections in 2014” In essence he posed the de facto partition of Cyprus. The amendment was rejected with 412 votes against (amongst them the 2 MEPs of the KKE) and 135 in favour, amongst them leading officials of the Party of the European Left such as Jean-Luc Melenchon and Younous Omarjee from France as well as the MEP of the German Die Linke party, Jurgen Klute, demonstrating in practice who supports the de facto participation of Cyprus through the recognition of the fake state and the application of pressure for a new “Annan Plan”.

Announcement for May Day 2013

STRIKE DEMONSTRATION

MAY 1st

SYNTAGMA Sq. 10.30a.m.

The uprisings of Chicago workers show the path of struggle against the modern slavery.

Working men and women, unemployed, youth

You have to turn the strike of May Day into a day of militant demand and manifestation of your indignation and anger. You must strenghten the lines of the trade unions; you have to enter the collective struggles having faith in your right. We must say no to today’s sweatshops, to today’s slavery. We have to say that “we will not become slaves of the 21st century”. 

May Day is a day of struggle! It is a day of international solidarity dyed with the blood of Chicago workers, of the countless sacrifices and of the working class heroes who fell in the uprisings of the class struggle. It is a day that the workers all over the world show their fists, their strength against their exploiters. It is a day that the modern demands of workers for decent life are projected, demands for relief of the working family of the barbaric measures of the monopolies and their political staff.

The rights and the achievements of workers were not given free by the exploiters, the governments and the parliaments. They were achieved through hard struggles.

We strike! May Day is a strike.

To the workers in the RENAULT factory in France

Dear colleagues,

The management of Renault is GUILTY for the suicide of your colleague in the Renault factory, on Monday April 22, early in the morning. But, the capitalist system is the cause that led your colleague to despair and commit a suicide. Because capitalism has in its DNA the exploitation of man by man, it survives by the exploitation.

Our experience by the brutal measures and the development of the capitalist crisis in our country proves that the wage cuts, the attack in the collective contracts, the unemployment, the reductions in pensions and allowances, and the abolition of labor achievements have the result the monopolies to win and the workers and people to loose.

In the case of Renault, are also confirmed the responsibilities of the employers’ trade unionism which signed with the management the “competitiveness pact”, increasing the working time and “freezing” the wages.

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of PAME, which rallies the class-oriented trade union movement of Greece, please transfer the warmest condolences of the working men and women of our country to the family of your colleague.

We will not become slaves of the 21st century.

The uprising of Chicago workers, the Paris Commune and the October Revolution show us the path.

We turn our back to the bureaucrats trade unionists, we join the class-oriented forces in every workplace and we struggle against the exploitation. The working class must become the master of the wealth that it produces.

THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT

PAME

Capitalist Crisis and Sea Transport

The course of sea transport is mainly determined by global economic conditions, the development of the capitalist crisis and the course of world trade. The synchronized capitalist crisis of over-accumulation manifested also in sea transport.

The capitalists’ worries are focused on the following factors:

The questions arising from the development of the capitalist crisis in Eurozone, U.S.A., Japan and the other capitalist countries.

Whether growth in world trade leading countries, such as China, India, Brazil and others, will continue at the same rate.

The fact that a large number of ships have been added and tonnage has increased within the period from 2003 until 2013, resulting in a capacity surplus which exceeds the increase of demand in sea transport.

2. Thedevelopmentoffreightmarket

In the period from September 2003 until July 2008, an increase of ship-owners’ freight and profits was observed, which resulted in the over-accumulation of immense capital through the increase of the maritime workers’ exploitation rate. This is a period of record-high profits, as indicated by the typical example of capsize ships (ships above 150,000 long tons DWT) which in May 2008 reached a daily freight rate of 214,000 dollars.

Ship-owners made enormous fortunes of billions of dollars. Greek ship-owners are included in the world’s richest capitalists. It is a fact that the manifestation of the capitalist crisis affects the freight market’s course from 2009 until this day. In 2012, freight rates decreased and reached the last decade’s lowest level.

In conclusion, we may assert that the capitalist crisis and the capacity oversupply of dry bulk cargo, container and tank ships continue to exert strong pressure on freight rates, something which, according to competent shipbrokers and ship-owners, will continue also in 2013.

Message of greetings to the 19th Congress of the KKE by the FARC-EP

KKE

Immediate response of the communists and the working class

“Greek and foreign workers united” “profits bathed in the blood of the workers in all Greece and Manolada” “The law is what is right for the workers” were the slogans shouted by the Greek and foreign workers in the centre of Nea Manolada as well as in Athens, Thessalonica, Giannena, after the call of the KKE, denouncing the murderous attack that was unleashed by the big strawberry farmers of Nea Manolada on 17/4, in response to the obvious demand of the immigrants to be paid for their hard work.

The communists, who for many years have been at the side of the immigrant workers, participated in the demonstration of the KKE in Nea Manolada alongside many agricultural workers. “This situation cannot go on, as the evil committed in Manolada and the wider region by the big business men in strawberry production and their thugs has gone on too long” stressed Dimitris Tzavaras, member of the CC of the KKE and secretary of the Pelopponese region of the party, at the demonstration “the attack against the immigrant agricultural workers is an attack on the whole working class, its movement, its vanguard. The immigrant agricultural workers of Manolada are a section of the Greek working class, so they are with us and we with them. While against us we have the capitalists and their thugs, and all those who provide support and toleration (state, mechanisms, political forces). The stance of each person regarding this issue tells us about their quality, about what interests they serve.” Dimitris Tzavaras noted.

PAME condemns the brutal, savage attack against immigrant workers in Manolada

PAME condemns the brutal, savage attack against the immigrant farm workers who demanded to be paid for their work.

In Manolada, a small community near Patras, in south west Greece, are located big plantations of strawberries. The landowners gain great profits by using immigrant workers in the fields, without collective contracts, no health care, no health and safety regulations, NO RIGHTS.

This situation is based on the state’s and the employers’ daily terrorization to the workers. The state does not give documents to the immigrant workers and keeps them afraid of deportation in daily basis, and the employers exploit this, so as to break any demands of the workers.

This is the law of the capital. It is the law of the jungle, where both Greek and immigrant workers are exploited for the profits of the capitalists. When the 200 immigrant farm workers demanded their accrued wages of six months, the employers took out their guns and shot in cold blood more than 20 workers.

The trade union cadre of SYRIZA apply the laws of the Memorandum

35% reduction in wages has signed the administrations of the Federation of Port Employees of Greece and the Trade Union of Dock Workers of Piraeus.

35% reduction in wages, according to the laws of Memorandum, and reversals in the total labor rights of the workers (employees and dock workers) are provided by the Collective Labor Contracts that the governmental and employers’ trade unionism has agreed together with the trade union cadres of SYRIZA in the administrations of the Federation of Port Employees of Greece and the Trade Union of Dock Workers of Piraeus with the administration of the Organization of Piraeus Port.

The president and managing director of the Organization of Piraeus Port congratulated the governmental and employers’ trade unionism and the trade union cadres of SYRIZA on their consent for the signing of the new Collective Labor Contract. The organization is in a status of “labor peace” since 2010, despite the wage cuts and the leave of 530 workers without hiring even one worker!

PAME

THESES OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE FOR THE 19TH CONGRESS

Click to read the Theses of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece for the 19th Congress. 

There is also explained what the term People's Alliance stands for.