After the fall of the junta, the working class managed to change its associations and its way of organization, but also to win important conquests from the employer, creating altogether new conditions
The Greek factory movement of the period 1974-1978 is one of the key stations in the history of the Post-colonialism, as it stands out not only for its militancy and the duration of its action, but also for the practice of class autonomy, the direct democratic procedures in its operation, the victorious conflict with employers and the state and the new type of union it formed, the factory union. We are talking about a labor current not just of questioning and resistance, but that manages to change the relationships and extract conquests from the employer, until at least the beginning of the 80s.
The factory movement appears in the political and social foreground as early as the first months of 1974, in conditions of impoverishment and deep exploitation that the junta’s policy had created in the working class, with the dissolution of its unions. Low wages, poor working conditions, high number of accidents, despotic hierarchy, authoritarianism and policing of workers in the workplace. (on working conditions in the dictatorship, Ioannidis Stefanos, The Factory Committees movementAthens 2019, EKPA, pp. 67-84 and 85-90).
The dictatorship had dismantled the trade unions of the 1960s and radical organizational forms such as the “Coordinating Committee” which brought together over 800 unions, labor centers and federations. Most of the trade union officials were imprisoned or found themselves in exile, while the workplaces were dominated by the brutal terrorism of the employers. In these conditions, the social background for the development of factory trade unionism and the class labor struggles of the period 1974-’78 is formed. It is noted that between 1958-74, the accumulation of capital led to the growth of the industrial sector of the economy and the concentration of the working class in large units. This helped to develop bonds in the workplace, while the fall of the dictatorial regime led to the creation of a radical current in the factory spaces, aiming for better pay and working conditions. (T. Sakellaropoulos, Greece in Postcolonizationed. NEA SYNORA – A.LIVANIS, p. 62).
The strike struggles begin in the fall of ’74, with the first strike of the National Can workers in Eleusis, with class autonomy and direct democratic procedures as the main characteristic as the strike committees are elected by the general meetings of the workers and occupations of workplaces. This was followed by the strikes of press technicians and ITT, the permanent strike at HBI and the workers at Olympiaki in December 1974, as well as the students of the Elena Obstetrics. In 1975, the strike movement will reach enormous proportions, characterized by the workers’ strike at Bodosaki’s Madame Lakko and the builders’ strike on July 22, 1975, when the prohibition of the march after the gathering at the Peroke theater results in extensive clashes with the police , while it is accompanied by the condemnation of the mobilization not only by the Karamanlis government, but also by the entire opposition and the official Left of the time.
In this period, the Karamanlis government, finding that a strong autonomous class labor movement was developing that could not be controlled through the traditional ways of party mechanisms and the paternalism of the secondary and tertiary trade union organizations, is preparing its counterattack with a new legislative repressive framework, Law 330/76, whose main objective is, according to the Minister of Labor at the time Laskaris, the abolition of the class struggle.
Between 1953 and 1962, there were 57 strikers per 1,000 employees. In 1976-1981 they increased to 450!
The labor mobilizations of the first post-colonial years are hundreds. It is characteristic that while in the years 1953-’62 the ratio was 57 strikers per 1,000 employees, in the period 1976-1981 it increases to 450. (N. Gourlas, Utopia 105, 2013). Pitsos, Izola, AEG, Petjetakis and ESKIMO, the workers of Skalistiris, the Mines in Madem Lakko in Halkidiki and LARCO, are the leading competitive moments of factory unionism.
This movement sets aside the sectoral and homoprofessional form of traditional trade unionism, unites all the workers of a workplace regardless of individual specialties and professional roles, overcomes the union oppositions between them and brings to the fore the capital-labour opposition, questioning the existing social division . The creation of labor unions broke the restrictions imposed by Law 3239/55, which required bargaining on a sectoral or federal basis and gave the final say to the state, with the institution of compulsory arbitration, to decide the fate of negotiations with the employer.
The defeat and integration of the movement
The factory movement itself could negotiate and put pressure on employers, extract conquests by excluding the state from the negotiation process. That is why Laskari’s law prohibits strikes by unrecognized unions. With the implementation of Law 330/76 we will have mass prosecutions, convictions and dismissals of trade unionists. Despite his victories, he is unable to make alliances with other parts of the labor movement, nor to plan for the long term, and is rejected politically and union-wise by the forces of the official Left. From 1978 onwards, we will have the defeat of the movement, which will be expressed by the integration into the reformist trade unionism of PASKE and the creation of OBES, in 1979, which will mean its ideological and political assimilation by the rising political and trade union power of era, the social democracy of PASOK.
2024-07-26 11:04:53