Fishworkers’ strike: An effective response to strikebreaking

An effective response to strikebreaking

Michaniona vessel bosses attempted yesterday, March 28, to transfer 12 Egyptian fishworkers from Keratsini, Athens, to Thessaloniki, on a bus. After dealing with the confusion of contradictory information, the fishworkers at Michaniona made this known and the mobilization that followed prevented the bosses’ plan from materializing.

Since early people had started gathering at the Thessaloniki bus station, train station and at other terminal stations so that to obstruct scabs’ arrival. Members of the PAME, the Solidarity Assembly and other groups were checking and controling those spots in parallel with the strikers who kept arriving from Michaniona. Late at night, the bulk of people gathered at the central bus station, which was thought as the most probable spot the scabs to arrive at; both other spots were kept constantly under control, though.

At 2 a.m. the bus arrived and the “dialogue” between the strikers and the would-be scabs concluded with the latter going to a place of reception for some time under the surveillance of strikers and stay there until they got the first bus back to Athens. The excuse they used was that they were not aware they would work for the Michaniona bosses and thought they would work for other employers in Northern Greece.

The 4 trawler bosses who would accompany them, after having been informed about what they were to meet at the bus station, deserted the van which would drive the fishworkers to Michaniona. The driver who would drive that van also left a little bit too hasty and crushed his car some meters along the road.

Generally speaking, and despite the vague and contradictory information, the people mobilized were many, they responded fast and effectively and stayed until late at night. On the other hand, if this is the best the bosses can do in terms of organisation, then things might not be that easy for them.

Of course, since the state’s service for labour employment (ΟΑΕΔ) and the Ministry of Employment have clearly taken the bosses’ side and has deemed the hiring of scabs legal (despite the fact that the strike is for now legal on a court’s decision), the trawlers bosses have already started hiring Bulgarian fishworkers in an effort to pave the road for strikebreaking. The Egyptian Fishworkers’ Union has already taken legal action against this but the injunction will not be brought to court earlier than April 16.

The way the strikers will deal with the actions of the bosses and their state allies will mean a lot for the future of the strike.

This is a translation of this solidarity assembly post.   previous posts on the strike here.

Fishworkers strike: solidarity discussion and concert in Thessaloniki

SOLIDARITY ASSEMBLY BLOG

http://solidarityaliergates.blogspot.com/

the first protest in Bulgaria for the rights of immigrants and refugees ever….

source: http://filoxenoi.wordpress.com/

LGB, AS group Sofia.

Here is a small report from yesterday…. Sofia, Bulgaria – On March 20, 2010 to the “Home for the temporary accommodation of foreigners” in the quarter Busmanci from 11 am to 13 pm held a peaceful protest rally against arbitrariness and repression against immigrants and in defense of their human rights.

—- Gathered about 40 people to protest against this antihumanno place for the immediate release of people in general and against the state policy against people detained there. The protest was organized by the Civil Initiative Committee and the Federation of Anarchists in Bulgaria. —- Anarohsaprotiva attended by activists, lawyers, friends of the detainees at the center, bloggers, and citizens.

Despite good weather and sent press releases – the place had a TV and 2 journalists.  None cameraman nor any other journalists. However, police were in place, ie before the high walls of prison long before the protesters. Video-duty cop was also on his post. People in prison have been informed of protests and even in the kind of people stood in the first bars. Dozens of hands with Victory sign to pass through the narrow bars. Many of the people inside were tied hands and mouths with rags, probably torn sheets. Many photos showed through the bars of their children. Provesiha handmade banner with the inscription Busmantzi – Freedom;. Throughout chanting – Guantanamo,Freedom, Human Rights we want Freedom … attempts to chanting in Bulgarian.

By the protesters was distributing leaflet on the problem and the newspaper “Free Thought”. Leaflet was read during the megaphone, for a short talk and a former prisoner at center. Chants were in Bulgarian and English slogans such as “There’s no Illegal people,” “*Papers for All or No Papers at* All!” The freedom of movement is everybody’s right, we are here and we will fight, “Busmanci – Guantanamo”, “No borders, no nations stop deportation” and others.

It was a little parade down the street to jail. Police did not intervene, and after half an hour the protesters withdrew, arguing before the high closed that “we will be back, this is only the beginning. People long waved through the bars and shouting “Thank you” while the group away.

This was the first protest in Bulgaria for the rights of immigrants and refugees ever….

Pictures here:

http://bulgaria.indymedia.org/article/36611

LGB, AS group Sofia.

More cases of racist police violence in Igoumenitsa

source: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1146452, thanx to Ben for his help with this post.

photo from athens indymedia

photo from athens indymedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On March 10, Igoumenitsa port police beat an innocent immigrant with their clubs in the port area of Igoumenitsa. The man sustained serious injuries in the attack.

 

This followed a similar incident where police harassed two men seeking assistance at a local health centre. The men were tormented and pushed around by the policemen who informed them that they could not use the services at the health centre and that it was “not a health centre for them”. 

The small town of Igoumenitsa has been known in the past for its racially motivated attacks on immigrants. One such attack occurred on an immigrant with severe health problems who was unable to defend himself when police set their dogs on the man (Police brutality once more in Igoumenitsa: Cops let loose their dog against immigrant).

The attacks continue, and as recently as last Wednesday, when an immigrant disembarked a ferry from Italy and was met by waiting port policemen.  

It is alleged the man had been beaten by both the Italian police and security thugs aboard the ferry, before being handed over to the Greek police for further punishment. His injuries were so severe that his internal organs had been seriously damaged by the repeated beatings. 

The situation in Igoumenitsa is out of control with local police using racially motivated violence in a display of abuse against these people’s basic human rights. The Igoumenitsa police continue to raid the immigrant settlement near Ladochori and on March 4 violently attacked six immigrants and left them with serious injuries.  

Igoumenitsa may be an isolated provincial town and the local police may believe their crimes will remain unknown, but they are wrong. Those people in solidarity with immigrants from Western Greece now monitor the situation and speak out against the abuse of innocent people. As the protests on March 2 have shown, nothing will remain in darkness.  

Two days of solidarity action in Athens

Two more “single incidents” of the everyday war against immigrants.

On Friday March 4 an immigrant fron Guinea was arrested, incriminated with drug dealing, only for the police to show off their anti-drug raids.  More in this post

Last Decmber immigrant street vendors were severly abused by cops during a manhunt in Athens high street, and then at the infamous Acropolis police station.  Victims of this story are still detained.  A court hearing is tomorrow, March 19.  More in this post and this post.

TWO DAYS OF ACTION

INFO & DICUSSION EVENT  AND VIDEO PROJECTION,THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 20.00, EMME BUILDING, 2, KALAMIOTOU STR., KAPNIKAREA AREA (near Ermou str.)

SOLIDARITY GATHERING@ATHENS COURTS (Evelpidon str.) MARCH 19, 09.00.

Assembly for Solidarity to Immigrants

Anti-racist Anti-fascist gathering Saturday February 6th at 11am at Propylaia, Athens

source athens indymedia

We call every activist to the open assembly at the Dean’s Office (Propylaia) at 8pm tonight, Friday Feb the 5th, to discuss tomorrow’s anti-fascist gathering at Propylaia.

OPEN ASSEMBLY OF PRYTANEIA (DEAN’S OFFICE) ANNOUNCEMENT

Today February 5th we anarchists, anti-authoritarians, antifascists, decided to keep the Prytaneia (Athens University Dean’s Office) open as a space to collectively organize the struggle building. Our aim is the fermentation and the counter-informing in view of tomorrow’s antifascist gathering that has been called for at 11:00 am at Propylaia. A gathering that stands against nationalist and racist activities of fascists, who have also called a gathering in the same place tomorrow at 3:00 pm, a gathering that stands against the solidarity of the oppressed during a period of pronounced attacks on immigrants by state militants and para-militant groups.

We stand hostile against both institutional racism, as expressed through the recent proposed legislation on naturalization, and independent callings of misanthropes who aim to physically harm immigrants.

At the same time that the government targets centers of resistance in general, fascists attempt to invade a space, which after lengthy tough struggle belongs to the world of freedom and resistance. We are not willing to even allow a square meter to the state/police and fascists.

We call every activist to the open assembly at the Dean’s Office (Propylaia) at 8pm tonight, Friday Feb the 5th, to discuss tomorrow’s anti-fascist gathering at Propylaia.

AUTHORITY IS NOT OUR FRIEND

NO OPPRESSED ARE OUR ENEMY

ASYLUM DOES NOT BELONG TO FASCISTS AND POLICE

IT BELONGS TO ACTIVISTS AND THE WORLD OF FREEDOM

WAR AGAINST STATE AND BOSSES

SOLIDARITY TO IMMIGRANTS

Anti-racist Anti-fascist gathering Saturday February 6th at 11am at Propylaia

“Our struggle is a struggle for dignity” – update on the fishworkers’s strike

info from athens indymedia articles and http://asyntaxtostypos.wordpress.com

Yesterday Wednesday Feb 3, the Egyptian fishworkers’s strike was brought for the fourth time to court. The trial’s outcome for the first time was positive. The court decided for the first time that the strike is not “illegal and abusive”.

Unsurprisingly this was the first time the court examined the case’s essence, unlike the three previous courts when the strike was declared “illegal and abusive” on various technical legalistic “irregularities” (for example on the pretext of notification of the strike to the “wrong recipient” or “at a wrong time”, etc.).

In this trial as well, two witnesses were examined, one from the shipowners side, the chairman of the cooperative of the ship owners D. Ntaoultzis, and a witness for the defence of fishworkers, the Secretary of the Trade Union Center of Thessaloniki, Zarianopoulos.

At the beginning of the process in front of dozens of fishworkers, people in solidarity and ship owners , the judge asked police officers to come forward and stay in front of the judges.

The issues addressed included the non delivery of necessary documents by the ship owners to the workers for the latter to be able to renew their residence permits, which is a very urgent thing. Fishworkers defence also referred to the fishworkers uninsured status in case of work accidents and the assignment of the [yellow] workers union – which does not include the mass of Egyptians – with the calculation of shares.

The ship owners representative admitted indirectly that he had taken action to have scabs sent to Michaniona (in cooperation with the labour representative of the Egyptian embassy). The issue of the document proposed by the ship owners as a settlement of demands [see previous posts/updates] targetting active strikers and prohibiting political or syndicalist activity to Egyptians was also discussed. The ship owners representative argued that the process of calculating the shares is accessible and transparent to the fishworkers, who refuted this by saying that at the crucial time of the calculation they are still on board. He also said that he does not think it is necessary that Egyptians are represented at the process and that “it would be good if Greeks had those jobs to combat unemployment”- prejudice towards foreign workers was obvious at all times. The ship owners lawyer warned the strikers that they “should be careful, because things will be wild from now on!”. He also said that the strikers are misguided by CP / PAME trade union, which supports them to gain their votes in view of the granting of voting rights to immigrants with the new immigration bill.

The strikers said after the trial’s first day “our struggle is a struggle for dignity”. Dignity will be the criterion of their decisions for further action.

Despite the good news with the court’s decisions, the strikers are in a very difficult situation in terms of money. Today there is a meeting of the Solidarity Assembly at the Thessaloniki Antiracist Initiative’s place [ermou & venizelou str.] for practical solidarity coordination.

– > previous update

Solidarity with immigrant street vendors in Athens!

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FEAST FRIDAY, February 5, 2010, ASOEE (Economic Univ., Patision str.), 9 pm SOLIDARITY GATHERING, Monday, 8 February 2010, EVELPIDON STREET COURTS, ATHENS 10 a.m.

Immigrants text:

Immigrants,

we invite you to support en masse our action and show your solidarity.

We call all those who feel that this is of their interest,

Every day we immigrants vendors, we get arrested and beaten and imprisoned for doing “illegal trade”

We’re on the road and we need to sell things.

We want a better life.

We want to work and make a living free and out of the sweat of our hands,

Let us unite for the common goal: solidarity and mutual aid among immigrants.

Immigrants

:::::::

The text of people in solidarity

In the center of Athens and Piraeus, the political and municipal authority, all kinds of cops, media and “indignant” shopkeepers engage everyone diffuse manhunts against immigrants.

On December 30, 2009, ca. fifty cops persecuted immigrants in the streets around Ermou street. They pushed around and beat savagely four of them.  One was taken to hospital and after his return to the infamous Acropolis police station he was beaten up again. Yet, it was the immigrants who were accused of “resistance to authority, disobedience and property damage”. The trial was postponed for February 8, 2010. One of them is still detained for not having “papers”.

The fury of racist cops, the beatings, the tortures and even the murders of immigrants are not “single / isolated incidents”.

It is an integral part of the daily and extensive structural violence against immigrants from the ones in power, cops and judges.

Solidarity, dignity and resistance pave the road for common struggles.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FEAST  FRIDAY, February 5, 2010, ASOEE (Economic Univ., Patision str.), 9 pm

SOLIDARITY GATHERING, Monday, 8 February 2010, EVELPIDON STREET COURTS, ATHENS 10 a.m.

::::

{for background see these posts:

• Manhunt against immigrant street vendors in Athens center.
• More testimonies of abuse and humiliation at the Acropolis Police Station Torture Chamber
• New case of severe immigrant abuse by cops of the Acropolis Police Station}

Zero tolerance terror against immigrants once more in Igoumenitsa

In recent days, a wave of police terror has swept the port town of Igoumenitsa on the Ionian sea side of Greece. This is one of the main gateways to Italy and immigrants o try there to get into ferries to Italy. This is the town where one year ago the Kurd refugee from Iraq Arivan Abdullah Osman had been severly injured on the 3rd of April at Igoumenitsa port by Port police men – he died in hospital a couple of months after.

Zero tolerance terror was implemented once more against sans papiers of the area. As athens indymedia users report, in the last days of January police operation tried to clear up the makeshift nylon huts immigrants had to protect themselves from the harsh winter conditions. The police not only destroyed the huts but also burnt people’s clothes and blankets.

After the barbarity was made known people of the area and near cities provided immigrants with clothes and necessary things, but this was not the end of the story.

The police, some days after the destruction of the settlement, raided once more towns’ spots where immigrants gather, they beat and arrested dozens, who were then kept in detention cells of the police stations, under “Guantanamo” conditions. There has been rumour that gunshots could be heard during the operations.

A solidarity committee has been formed in the town and is working on practical solidarity issues. Their next meeting is on Thursday, February 6, at the Igoumenitsa Technical University premises.

What happened earlier today during the third trial of the fishworkers’ strike.

SOURCE: http://asyntaxtostypos.wordpress.com/ post, published in athens indymedia.

most recent update in this post

What happened today in the third trial of the fishworkers strike (the strike was brought anew to court).

The judge of the Thessaloniki Court gave the fishworkers’ lawyers a deadline  to produce by 12 tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan 2010)

noon the necessary documents proving their claims against the trawlers bosses.These documents, according to the legal defence of the fishworkers, prove a series of abuses committed by the trawlers owners, including:

– The illegal practice of inviting other fishworkers, essentially to work as scabs,

– The deception of some Egyptians who were misled to sign a labour agreement in Arabic and in Greek language, which was very different from the original English version [the valid one should disputed occur] which contained onerous labor terms*.

– The fact that “employers unilaterally delegated to “representatives” of a “union of Michaniona fishworkers” (a  union which excludes the overwhelming majority of Egyptian) to calculate the “share”, with no control whatsoever exerted by the workers themselves; thus, the trawlers bosses were in position of paying the fishworkers as little as they wished ” testified today on court by the defence witness Secretary of Thessaloniki Trade Unions  Sotiris Zarianopoulos.

– The fact that the trawlers owners refused to provide the fishworkers with copies of their individual employment contracts, which are necessary for them in order to renew their residence permits, with a view to have them deported and replace them with other, cheaper fishworkers.

For these allegations, a witness for the prosecution said that the she either did not know of those facts or denied them, rousing a storm of protests by tens of strikers who were present in the court room and watched the process. Amid strong protests over allegations and arguments of the trawlers owners’ lawyer (who argued inter alia that “foreign workers shouldn’t be allowed to come here and establish unions at will …”), the procedure was halted until tomorrow for the strikers’ lawyer to produce the required documents.

The trial was attended by the CP MP Sophia Kalantidou (who had submitted interpellations to the parliament  on the issue), the Secretary of Thessaloniki Trade Unions Center Sotiris Zarianopoulos (PAME), the Deputy Secretary of the Thessaloniki Trade Unions Center , Despina Charalambides (Aftonomi Paremvasi –Radical Left Coalition), the President of the Thessaloniki Builders Union  Vassilis Revas (PAME) (last Monday a press conference by the fishworkers and S. Zarianopoulos took place at the offices of the Trade Union of Thessaloniki) and several leftist and independent supporters of the struggle including the Soliodarity Assembly with the Fishworkers’ Strike.

In a gesture of support to the strikers who have found themselves in the recent months in a deplorable financial situation, student unions, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and leftist organizations and the Solidarity Assembly called for today Tuesday at 6 pm a solidarity rally. On Friday Jan 29 the Assembly organizes a Concert at 9 pm at the University “to support the Egyptian fishworkers in Mihaniona”. [SEE RIGHT SIDEBAR ON THIS BLOG]

* The unacceptable “lost in translation” Greek text of  ‘agreement’ which misled five (of a total 130) of Michaniona Egyptian fishworkers included the following condition in paragraph 6: “The Egyptian fishworkers should not be involved in any Greek political party or body related to labour obligations and rights “!