The Greek December 2008 Uprising and the Role of the New Trade Unions (3o) 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 occupation of the building of the General Confederation of Greek Workers

The term "repertoire of action" describes the total of available means of collective action of the people available in a given historical context and a specific socio-political context. The availability of the means of collective action depends largely on the current institutional framework. As has been widely discussed by many historians there many cases where the “underdogs” either continue to use repertoires of action of past times or devise new forms of struggle overcoming the limits set to collective action by the current institutional contexture of the state and the political system.[1] During the "uprising of December" one of the available means of collective action mostly used along with the dynamic mass demonstrations was the "occupation" of public buildings. One of these "public buildings" was the building housing the offices of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) that was occupied by rebel- workers of the “precarious employment” sector. The first question is whether the GSEE apparatus is regarded as a state apparatus and in case it is regarded as such whether is it worth to be called a target to be occupied in order to justify a political intervention for the expression of claims and demands towards the central state power, the government and the employers. Organizing workers in trade unions is, in principle, a democratic conquest achieved under capitalism with the struggle of the radical members of the working class, who understood that only the unity of workers in a trade union could be the means to push employers to grant rights to the workers. During the 20th century and especially after World War II, unions achieved greater political legitimacy in the context of Western capitalist welfare state in order to guarantee social peace and capitalism system’s smooth operation. In this context, trade unions, in turn, serve as “ideological apparatuses of the state” according to Louis Althusser’s term. As such the trade unions effectively disseminate the idea of limited claim-making by means of negotiations in the framework of trilateral cooperation between employers, state, and workers.[2] This function is reinforced in times of economic crisis, like the current one. GSEE is accused by many sides (communists, some socialists, radical leftists, extreme leftists, and anarchists) of consenting to the (bipartisan) policy of austerity to end the crisis and lack of assistance to trade unions covering precariously employed workers.[3] On December 17, 2008 the neoclassical building of GSEE at the centre of Athens where the offices of the Confederation are housed were occupied by precarity workers. The squatters immediately convened a General Assembly of Insurgent Workers (the initials in Gree are the same as GSEE) and issued the following declaration:


Our history will be defined by as
or it will be defined in our absence.

We, manual workers,  employments, unemployed, temporary, natives and immigrants, who are not tv-viewers and who since Saturday evening, following the murder of Alexander Grigoropoulos, participate in demonstrations, in clashes with police, the occupations at the city-center and neighbourhoods, who often had to quit our jobs and our daily obligations in order to take to the streets with pupils, students and other proletarians who are struggling.
We decided to occupy the building for GSEE in order to:
Turn it into a space for free expression and meeting of the workers.
Dispel the myth promoted by the media that the workers were and are absent from the conflict and that the anger expressed these days is a matter of 500 "hooded", "hooligans" and other fairy tales, whereas on their screens and talk-show windows workers were presented as the victims of the conflict, at the same time that the capitalist crisis in Greece and around the world results in hundreds of thousands of layoffs which  the same mass media and their managers presented as a “natural phenomenon”.
To condemn and expose the role of trade union bureaucracy in undermining the insurgency and not only that. The GSEE union and the entire apparatus that supports it for decades have been undermining struggles,  haggle over the price our labor force for crumbs, perpetuating the system of exploitation and wage slavery. Indicative of this is the stance they took last Wednesday by cancelling the planned strike march limited itself  in organizing a brief meeting at the Syntagma Square taking care to rid of the crowd quickly so as not be contaminated by the virus of  the mutiny.

Open for the first time this space -as a continuation social opening created by the uprising-which has been built with our own contributions and from which we are excluded. Why for so many years did we trust our fortune to all sorts of saviours, resulting even to the loss of our dignity? As workers we must begin to assume our responsibilities and not to entrust our hopes to any enlightened leader or “capable” representative. We must have voice; we must get together, discuss, decide and act. We must strike back against the widespread attack we are experiencing. The creation of collective resistances “from below'” is a one-way street.
Promote the idea of self-organization and solidarity in the workplace, of the creation of struggle committees and collective procedures at the base, of the elimination of the trade union bureaucrats.
So many years we silently experience misery, snitching and violence at work.

We became used to count our dead and crippled colleagues –events that had been labelled “work accidents”.

We became used to measure and think nothing of immigrants-our class brothers who are murdered.

We got tired of living with the stress of trying to find and secure a salary, insurance stamps, and a pension which is an illusive dream.

As we fight to avoiding leaving our lives at the hands of bosses and trade union representatives so we will not leave anyone of the arrested rebels at the hands of the state and its legal apparatuses.

Immediate release of detainees
NO PROSECUTION OF THE ARRESTED PERSONS
Self-organization of WORKERS
GENERAL STRIKE

Labor meeting in the "liberated" GSEE building
Wednesday 17/12/08, at 18:00.
General Assembly of Insurgent Workers

Until that moment, these were the "invisible" employees, the "borrowed" workers, the guys next door whom we know only when we call them to serve us for just one "moment" before letting them go get lost somewhere in the night on a small capacity motorcycle. With the occupation of the offices of GSEE they became “visible” demanding to be acknowledged politically and socially by us. They were striving to organize, to build or reactivate a union on a slow pace, but now things get a different dimension. During the uprising time assumes a different meaning. Time is condensed and the impetus given by the impact of the events to the actions of new social subjects is important. The structural inequalities gain more weight in the minds of previously excluded workers. They know that they have to do with something else than just with some "representatives" who "betray" their social class. They understand that they have to do with a bureaucratic apparatus that makes itself comfortable in the context of the tripartite cooperation between state, employers and labor. This bureaucracy attempts to justify its raison d'être by defending the capitalist production and the capital profits so that they negotiate from better positions.[4]

The squatters suspended a vertical banner from the roof of the building, on the front side on Alexandras Avenue in which the situation and the basic demand were written: Starting from "The industrial accidents” to the cold blooded murders, the State and the Capital are pure murderers. No indictment. Immediate release of those arrested. General Strike. Self-organization of the workers will become the "tomb" of bosses. They also suspended another two banners, and on one of which it was noted that it is a “recapture of GSEE by the employees”.

The next day the mechanism of secondary organizations controlled by the leadership of the GSEE started to issue condemnatory decisions for the occupation of the building. "Occupations should target somewhere else, the GSEE is in power," said to NET channel the Leader of the Confederation of Mr. Yiannis Panagopoulos, reacting to the occupation of the building. The press release issued by the Athens Labor Center on December 18 is very interesting:

EKA
Athens Labor Center
DEPARTMENT OF the GENERAL CONFEDERATION OF GREEK WORKERS

PROTOCOL NUMBER 3537 Athens 18/12/2008
PRESS RELEASE

The Athens Labor Center Athens  expresses its strong discomfort with the provocative movement of a minority of citizens who declare themselves "employees" to occupy the building of GSEE. The building belongs to all people of Greece and represents decades of struggles by colleagues - WORKERS, to safeguard and defend our rights at work.
The move however does not come from parthenogenesis. It is the result of state repression and indiscriminate violence of recent days against the social struggles.
The Athens Labor Center expresses the employees, organize and stands by their struggle to overthrow the violence and the broader unpopular policy and their struggle for the improvement of their incomes and better living standards.
We all employees of the Attica Basin should be united in the struggle to assert freedom of expression and our dignity. We want a political condemnation for the occupation of GSEE.

GSEE IS NOT A BUILDING!
GSEE ARE WE ALL!
The GSEE is the collective organizer and leader of the struggle of employees!

For the Board

(stamp affixed)


Both sides face each other as something unauthentic and manufactured. They do not seem to understand each other’s social references. The Athens Labour Center’s (EKA) administrative board denies that the squatters are worker and employees and the squatters’ press release refers to "traitors" of the union movement. Let's see how the general assembly of the occupation responded:

GENERAL ASSEMBLY INSURGENTS WORKERS – A brief answer to the press release of EKA

The general assembly of the insurgent workers expresses its distress for the provocative – disloyal to the feelings of the working class- announcement of EKA. We are men and women workers from various sectors and occupations, either organized in unions or non organized, and we want to unite the rage of a whole society against the murderous government and  the silence and inaction of the official opposition and the official trade union bodies  that have not risen to the occasion and  with their stance support this government and the system of murderers - thieves and looters of public funds.

The occupation of GSEE’s palace like so many other movements of the workers – young people – unemployed - immigrants these days reflect the resentment of a whole world who can not be expressed by the leaders and careerists who support the system. We occupied the building just because it supposedly symbolizes the labor struggles and because it belongs to all of us who fight for our rights and for a different future.

It is unacceptable to exclude from the building, hundreds of people who every day assemble and participate in trade union meetings. From a building-symbol we turned into a free - open space for all workers, men and women, to coordinate their fight and to organize their own response without brokers and sold-out representatives.

Our movement was the result of state repression and violence of capitalism against the social struggles and came to answer the silence of bureaucratic structures such as EKA and GSEE.
How much does EKA express the workers?
Does EKA express the working people that are not unionized because they refuse to be represented by a subordinate - and spineless bureaucratic unionism?
Are the low paid workers who work uninsured in the “black labour market”, with flexible hours, just because these gentlemen have surrendered to the demands of the bosses and the government?

Situations such as the occupation by the general meeting of insurgent workers, where workers have the opportunity to take the struggle on their own hands uncover the true face of GSEE, which is now stationed at EKA. In order to sabotage our project they have cut telephone lines, internet and access to electronic media to make it difficult for the occupation to serve as a center of counter-information and struggle for the workers. Despite all that, more than six hundred workers who participate in daily labour meetings organize their struggle against state violence and fight claiming their self-evident rights. We have already been expressed through thousands leaflets  that we have handed out and we invite all those who wish to participate in this effort
General Assembly of Insurgent Workers
Athens 19/12/08
Third day of the occupation

ΣΥΝΕΧΙΖΕΤΑΙ (ΤO BE CONTINUED)

---

[1] Tilly Ch. (2004) Social Movements, 1768-2004.. Boulder, CO and London UK: Paradigm Publishers For a critical discussion, see Piven, F.F. and  Cloward R.. (1992) “Normalizing Collective Protest”. in Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (eds.) Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven, CT and London, UK: Yale University Press, pp 301-325.

[2] Althusser Louis (1971) Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. On the issue of the trade unions as ideological apparatuses of the state, see Coates David (1980) Labour in power?: a study of the Labour government 1974-1979. London, UK and New York, NY: Longman,. See also: Dunkerley David and Salaman Graeme (1980) The international yearbook of organization studies. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

[3] Interestingly enough is the fact that after 4.5 months, in an interview the Chairman of GSEE tries to deny that GSEE does nothing for the trade unions covering workers in precarious employment:
"Interview with Chairma of GSEE MR. PANAGOPOULOS: SECTION D
Q: GSEE is criticized that it did not move quickly enough to prevent the deregulation of labour.
A: For those who do not live the reality of the unions, who unfortunately suffer to some extent by the ills of the system (partisanship, bureaucracy, etc), is easy to criticise
Q.:Pathogenicity that drove people away from the unions ...
A. I accept that, unfortunately it is true. However, I must first emphasize that there are fields where it is very difficult to intervene, as precarious work. For example, the so-called “delivery services” cannot create organizations. We try, but ..
Q.: You are strongly criticized that while riskier types of work increase more and more you do not have reached the workers in such fields.
A.: Members of the GSEE are  the first-degree and second degree organizations. What does it mean to include them? If they can build a union they will be included in the Labor the next day.  We do what we can. It is a lie, and it is said from those who have not created unions but ideological formations. Unions means an employee, regardless of ideology. GSEE is obliged to accept a union.
Q. How can agency workers covered?
A. Things are not always so simple, they have two sides. Young people working under this system, eg in banks, it is sure that they would never be accepted by the official association,  for example in the National Bank, because it would mean that the union would ridicule the Personnel Regulation.
Q. Yes, but it is not the fault of the "rented" workers ...
A.There is a risk, however, that the governments would stop recruitment through public examinations  and hire employees through the personnel rental companies.
See Interview at www.in.gr «”SEE says that the solution must be collective, but it still leaves precarious employment uncovered.” remains exposed the precarious job» 30/4/2009 http://www.in.gr/news/article.asp?lngEntityID=1009475

[4] "The multiplicity of causes, people, strategies and actions meant that the uprising gained momentum on its own, based around the greater influence of the" snowball "effect that keeps unsettled any attempt for interpretation and pacification. Before and after became indistinguishable. Causes, effects and actions are interwoven in a knot that can not be solved. Just as the advent of the insurgency could not be foreseen,  it could not also be controlled. This is what moved the uprising close to what the philosopher Alain Badiou calls the "event". An event is a political act that emerges unexpectedly from the blocked parts of a political situation and not be limited to the sum of the factors which made it possible. The December events disrupted the established order of the Greek political scenery allowing invisible, anonymous and vulnerable people to become leading political actors. It was not just a matter of protest-the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos was the catalyst for the construction of a new political subjectivity-nor was the explosion coordinated by social movements. This makes it difficult to understand the insurgency and prevent troubled commentators from “receiving the message”. The creation of  political actors  turn these events from a normal student and left protest  into something new, which has both the characteristics of civil resistance but exceeds them through radical changes in the political landscape. ”. See Douzinas Costas (2009), op.cit.