Monday, December 10, 2018

The Greek December 2008 Uprising and the Role of the New Trade Unions (4o) by Athanasios Tsakiris



15th Alternative Futures and Popular Protest Conference
Manchester Metropolitan University
29-31 March 2010

The Greek December 2008 Uprising
and the Role of the New Trade Unions

Athanasios Tsakiris
PhD, Political Science
National and Kapodistrian



University of Athens






The new trade union collectivities

Up to now it seems like the debate is based on abstract forms. The "squatters" against the "bureaucrats". On 19/12/2008 squatters who were occupying the Athens University of Economics (ASOEE) and squatters from the General Assembly of Insurgent Workers “invaded” the premises of MRB polling company and OTE (Hellenic Telecommunication Organization) call center (No. 11888) briefly interrupting the production process and handing-out the following text to the operators working in these companies under precarious employment conditions (seasonal, part-time, agency workers, etc.). Both the target of the intervention and the terminology of the text reveal the social origins of the squatters who come from similar working relationships and know from experience what happens at work:


MESSAGE WITHOUT CHARGE
You work as an operator. 
Your job is to answer thousands calls to give out  information necessary for the movement of commodities in the metropolis (e.g. 11888). Or you always make the calls for the conduct of market surveys / polls to know so that the bosses know the profiles of consumers/citizen to whom they are addressed. Or at worst to make the calls to convince people to become would-be consumers for useless goods you are forced to promote. Common conditions in all these jobs is the control of production through the machine, the head that rings, the dead time and the nipping eyes in front of a screen. Common term also is the hourly wage of 3.5 euros or piecework and the consequent blackmail to meet the frantic production standards of the company, as well as the resultant “lame” insurance stamps. Commonly speaking, a miserable and thankless (crap) job done either for some pocket money (for students) or due to unemployment or as a second job for "professionals" (precariously employed).
These are jobs where more and more people work because the number of jobs offered by bosses is of  limited range. Indeed ,we are beginning to suspect that the proposals of those at the "top" for 3 days work per week are designed to turn the people to such flexible employment relationships. Obviously not to work less, but to work at more than one jobs and survive by adding pocket money from each job. Besides, it is quite convenient for the masters to create “workers-chameleons” who as temps are incapable to organize their colleagues, to shape demands, to make claims. Unavoidably, all efforts of several new workers in such jobs to organize collective structures in recent years (e.g. on voluntary basis), failed not because they lack the appetite, but because insecurity in these areas leaves no room for constant intervention .





While these are unequal battles, for the official trade unionists this category of workers simply does not exist. Suffice it also that the left and the mass media stick a label such as “the 400 euros generation”. So you have to show them your thankfulness for having found you even though you know that nothing ever changes to the better in these jobs. After all, the paternalists have more important work to do than to act against the flexibilisation of work: you know now, to sell out strikes, to sign 1 (one) euro wage increases, to be photographed together with the manufacturers of SEV etc.
According also to the well known “market guy” J. Panagopoulos, the proper workers are at work during the day and they don’t have free time to occupy the trade union palaces of the GSEE. We must inform the said paternalist that a large segment of the youth and the workers who for two weeks now clash with the police, demonstrate in the streets and occupy public buildings, are employed in such jobs and therefore, the flexible hours and the condition of precariousness provide the option that between rebellion and working to sometimes choose the former. Like a form of invisible and informal strike. Individual methods always exist. From taking a leave to participate in the demonstration to quitting this kind of work for a span of time, particularly since you're used to change work as you change shirts.
As there are individual ways of blocking the hectic pace of production. From a cigarette or a walk to the toilet that take longer than as usual or other 'underground' ways of denying  intensification (because there are also companies that make cut from the salary according to the time it takes you to pee). Each worker does whatever he/she can in order to work less, since after all they do work that offers no benefit to the society, who do not find any meaning in this work beyond the money. For this reason also the more these jobs are on the increase there is no alternative left but to sabotage them. If so many thousands of bad employees cannot go on a classic type of strike, they can certainly destroy the regularity of the commodity operation of the metropolitan center, participating along with other insurgents in confrontational events following the murder of 15 year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos. Apart from the outbursts of anger, one of the issues is to help the individual counterproductive mood to find those paths through which it will be transformed into collective mood for blocking the alienated labor and everyday life.
Since, then, GSEE disregards the world of flexible work, we invite you to the liberated by workers building as well as to other occupations, to organize together our collective action.
Employees, temporary, students, unemployed from the General Assembly Insurgent Workers and the Occupation of the Athens University of Economics.


This conflict between old and new unionism that occurred with the occupation of the offices was visible in the mass media that do not usually play the easy card of impression. We read in a center-right Sunday newspaper that:

This conflict between the two worlds is real. It does not mean that the young people who occupied the building of GSEE and identified themselves as anarchists, independent, anti-authoritarians, and anything else outside of the dominant categorization of ideas in our country, representing deservedly the entire invisible world of job insecurity. Because often the micro-authoritarianism and maximalism in the behavior of this extra-parliamentary tendency, dogmatism in communication, may result in turning private sector workers away at the same speed they leave the official trade unions. Nevertheless, the occupation was a scream. It has createδ a real opposition within the unions that tend to live with their secrets and their spoils (“rousfeti” in Greek). Now, GSEE trade unionists cannot pretend that they know nothing. And that they do not see what we see every day. They represent only the very confident ones in the labor market: they have lost their real role and have become a closed guild; that young people identify them with power, a power which union officials themselves reluctantly leave after retirement. Moreover we know that young people ridicule the boring union meetings with the prefixed decisions by the correlation of party forces. They see the organizational structures of trade unions the thumbnail of the parties, and cauterize the vanities of trade unionists that hold their thrones as springboards for the transition to politics, or even for their careers.

The main unions covering the working people who work in these kinds of jobs are either older unions that have been reorganized by the new generations of workers in order to match the new needs or new unions that were created in recently founded companies such as in high-tech industries and new unions that cover temporary and part-time workers and other precarious jobs in industries such as the courier services. Some of the unions were founded after the refusal of official unions to include among their membership precarious workers (e.g. agency workers in banks and other companies of the financial sector) and their creation has accelerated since the uprising, which breathed the spirit of self-organization. Below we refer to some of the most dynamic and radical unions:

1. Union of Workers in Call Centers of OTE “Konstantina Kuneva”
 Founded on December 19, 2008 after a brief drive for collecting signatures. The union was met with strong acceptance by the workers and was formal approved by the First Instance Court. The demands that the union forwarded had to do with the observance of basic human rights in the workplace, the lack of tolerance for cases of violence (psychological and physical) against part-timers and newly hired workers that had increased. There were also demands for granting exam leaves to student-workers on the sole precondition to present a certificate of studies, because actually the granting of the leave depended on the superintendent’s will, payment of in-house training that takes place just after the appointment, and, of course, the establishment of the right to insurance. Except the employer’s indifference the union met the hostility of the official trade unionists that culminated to the act of preventing the new union’s representatives to exercise their right of speech at the Nationwide Conference of OME-OTE (OTE Workers' Federation).
2. Panhellenic Workers Union of Tim Hellas-WIND (PASETIM). 
The Union was founded in 2005 and since then it is the main and most dynamic union in the mobile phone industry in Greece and of the whole community of the precariously employed people. "The aim of the union is to defend the rights and promote the interests of the employees of the company. One goal involves the development of relations of solidarity and camaraderie between us. We employees have our own special place within the company; all together with our work we produce the final outcome and the problems we face are common. For this reason, only our independent voice and our joint efforts can help us solve these problems and improve our position. We are, indeed, in a difficult period for work, where all the workers face a total offensive, even against the most fundamental rights. Workers gains are challenged; under dispute are rights such as 8-hours working day (with the recent attempt to institutionalize flexible hours), overtime pay, collective agreements, social security and even democratic rights and freedoms, as for instance the recent decisions of the European Union to legalize the monitoring on permanent basis of all communications (emails-phone) of every citizen. We cannot fail to deal with such issues and we must grant them a place in the life and the activities of the Union. The vortex of crisis did not surprise the members of the union who were ready to   organize industrial action and strikes to save jobs. In July 2008 the union organized the first work stoppage requesting the signing of a satisfactory collective labor agreement. That stoppage was the consequence of the break down of the bargaining negotiations with the employer and of the failure of a massive show of protest at the headquarters in May. The employers responded by persecuting members of the Administrative Board of the union for trivial occasions. Finally the contract was signed after intense pressure and protests that included the collection of signatures, the frequent general assemblies, the protest presentations and work stoppages. In the uprising of December 2008 many members participated in demonstrations and took part at the occupation of the offices of GSEE. During 2009, the bosses hardened their attiudes, whereas the PASETIM participated in general and sector strikes and recently problems came up due to the economic crisis and the erroneous investment strategy of the company’s management team. The management tried to drives hundreds of worker to early retirement, which means mass layoffs. Strikes are now frequent and passionate. More and more workers and employees of the company participated in the strikes (e.g. in the Panhellenic General Strike on March,11 2010) and in the mass blockades of the company’s headquarters on Athinon Avenue (this part of  the city is now the new financial centre where the headquarters and major banks and multinational corporation are situated).[1]

3. The Panhellenic Union of Salaried Technicians
This is one of the relatively new unions which operate in the field of salaried technicians (engineers, geologists, technologists, designers, technicians high school graduates), that is all the technicians working as salaried employees in private sector companies.  It was founded in June 1999 in Athens in order to defend the collective rights of salaried technicians. 

4. Book and Paper Sector Employees Union.
This is one of the oldest unions in Greece. Due to changes in the sector its social base has changed too. Now it is a union that organizes many workers and employees who work in various specialties from cashiers and clerks to sampler, secretaries and accountants and other precarious jobs.[2] Its characteristic is that it is a union that functions entirely on a direct democracy basis with an Adminstrative Board without bureaucratic powers. The members of the Board are revocable by the General Assembly since it is the sole body that can make decisions. The Union made innovations in terms of both organization building and strategy and tactics. Since to strike in private sector companies is a risky operation, the Union uses the tactic of blockade and collections of signatures by targeting those companies that implement anti-union measures or proceed to lay-offs.[3]

5. Postal & Courier Workers Union of Attica.
This is one of the most radical unions in Athens. It played a significant role in the case of the occupation of the building of GSEE. It was founded in 1992 but it started its main mobilizations in 1997 due to the worsening of the labour relations in the industry. Later on a new union was founded by delivery workers from diners and other pizza and chophouses without great success. The Unitary Movement was a new initiative for the creation of a union for all the employees of the industry (including secretaries, accountants etc). Finally, in 2008 the Postal & Courier Workers Union of Attica drafted a new constitution [4]    

6. Union of Professors in Private Teaching Centres
Private tutoring institutes’ professors are a mass sector of precarious workers in Greece due to the many problems facing the public education system and due to the highly competitive examination system for entrance to universities. Their union was founded in 1975 and reorganized in 1995. These professors work with contracts terminated each May 31st and they do not know whether and where they will find a job in September at the beginning of the new academic year. After 1997 and the establishment of the Single High School (Lyceum) System the union was flooded with new members. The union established new principles, strategies and operations: simple proportional electoral system, rotation in leading positions, decentering of collective bargaining at the first-degree union level etc). The union has to show many gains setting the standards for many unions.[5]   

7. Waiters and Chefs Union
This is another reorganized union that gained mass membership due to the opening of many taverns, fast-food restaurants, snack bar, catering companies, pubs and bars etc. The union follows a self-organizing strategy[6] encouraging the creation of similar organizing initiatives throughout the country.[7]

8. All Attican Union for Janitors and Home Service Personnel
The contemporary era janitors’ union in Greece is PEKOP (All Attican Union for Janitors and Home Service Personnel). The union operates for almost a decade it has more than 1.600 members and covers those workers employed in the private cleaning sector’s enterprises. The majority of these workers (90%) are women and 65-70% out of them are foreigners coming from Albania, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, and some of them come from Bangladesh and Palestine. Of course there are other local unions in other areas of the country, such as in the Prefecture of Magnesia, Achaia, Lamia etc, covering janitors who work in public schools in primary and secondary education.[8]

9. Union of National Theater Workers
The Union of National Theater Workers is a new union which comprises of props, lighting technicians, stage managers and other theatrical staff. Members of union took  part in the occupation of the offices of GSEE as well as in the occupation of the Opera building. [9]

There are many unions created every month in Greece that do not follow old trails. Other unions or groups are created inspired by anarcho-syndicalist ideas and self-management (“autogestion”) programs but do not wish to join the official state-centered unions guided by GSEE. One of these groupings is the Libertarian Trade Unionist Association (“Eleftheriaki Syndikalistiki Enosi” –ESE) which was founded in 2003.[10] Its principles are the following: 1. Workers solidarity. 2. Direct action. 3. General revolutionary strike. 4. Workers self-management  It has four local chapter-members (Athens, Thessaloniki, Arta, and Trikala) and one chapter-member in teachers and high school professors. It is also reported that ESE members act independently in 11 more Greek cities.[11] ESE published the monthly newspaper “Epi ta Proso” (“Ahead”). A splinter group founded the “Rosinante Collectivity”and publishes the monthly newspaper “Rosinante”.[12] The “Rosinante Collectivity” intends to proceed to a conference to establish a new Libertarian Association. 

Some of these groupings cooperate through a network of internet sites and blogs spreading information, ideas, texts, and calls for action. There are blogs that collect and share information on cases of employer harassment, employee complaints, calls for general assemblies, ideological and theoretical discussion, invitations for events etc. Examples:  http://anticallcenter.wordpress.com/,  http://www.adeho.gr/ (cultural jamming), http://www.antistasigr.blogspot.com/ (information portal),
http://noikiasmenoi-ergazomenoi.blogspot.com/ (agency workers) and many others.



5. Preliminary conclusions

As a first conclusion we could say that the December uprising was a milestone for the trade union movement in Greece. The first major confrontation between the old and the new trade union movement brought to the fore the crisis of representation that was already a significant fact that was recorded in the public opinion surveys as well as in labor union statistics (reduction of membership, electoral abstention in union elections, rise of independent, autonomous and left radical factions etc). The new labor unions consist of mainly agency, casual and precarious workers. Their main characteristics are the following:
a. the establishment of decision-making structures based on the principles of direct democracy and revocability of representatives,
b. the enrichment of traditional repertoires of action with new types of struggle, such as workplace occupations, flexible work stoppages and strikes, blockages of crossways and public service/government buildings.

                                         



[1]In a recent announcement on the occasion of the persecution of a member of the Union’s Administrative Board   there is a call to action: “For one more time our Union is in the need to defend our colleague’s (Thanassis Grammozis) right to work. We have already started this struggle with two mass blockades of the building at Athinon Avenue. We continued with the strike on March, 11. We continue with a 5-hour work stoppage on Thursday, March 16, 2010.  On that day the tripartite meeting will be held for the appeal for the revocation of the lay-off decision.  In this struggle we will need your help once more. Your solidarity in combination with our own efforts stopped the persecutions by the employers of WIND and achieved the revocation of the lay-off decision for a member of our administrative board. We are sure that we deal collectively with this lay-off case and will turn it away.  For this reason we ask from you to participate in the tripartite meeting at the Labour Inspectorate (2, Surmeli St & Acharnon Ave) that will take place on Tuesday, 16/03/2010 at 10am.  At the same time send  resolutions of protest to email-boxes: n.zarkalis@wind.com.gr (WIND’s CEO e-mail) as well as info@pasetim.com (our Union’s email-box).  
The Administrative Board of the Panhellenic Workers’ Union of TIM (WIND) - PASETIM.
[2] “’Precarity’ or we could better say ‘work insecurity’ is expressed as ‘working part-time’ (time wages) ans as fixed term contracts (three or four months work). The composition of “precarious workers” has changed. In the past these jobs were preferred by students who did not want to work full-time (8 hours). As time goes by, the proportion of students is decreasing and the proportion of worker who are forced to work as hostages under these humiliating labor relations is increasing…Pioneer firms in the destruction of labour rights are the big bookshops (e.g. Eleftheroudakis, Papasotiriou etc.) See announcement of the union cited in Bolota Μyrto (2008) «I exegersi tou precariatou! (“The rebellion of the precariat”’, Galera, No. 30 March, http://galera.gr/magazine/modules/articles/article.php?id=1101)   

[3] For more details see:  Tsakiris Thanassis (mimeo) “An interesting direct democracy experiment: Trade unionism in the publishing and paper milling sector” Paper presented at the 8thConference of the Hellenic Political Science Association.  Democracy at a Crossroads: Threats and Challenges at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Athens, Panteion University, 26-28 May 2008.

[4] For more details in Greek, see http://settea.blogspot.com/
[8]Athanasiοs Tsakiris, Maria Pendaraki, Irene Savvaki, and Paraskevi Kaliva (2009)“Constantina, you are not alone”: janitors/cleaners’ unionism in Greece and solidarity . Alternative Futures and Popular Protest conferencemovements. http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/constantina-you-are-not-alone/
[9] http://www.seeth.net

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