This 8th of March finds our union in the midst of the great struggle in call centres for wage increases, the signing of collective contracts, the abolition of the modern slavery of the special purpose visas. It could not, therefore, not be dedicated to the call center workers, the mothers, the students, the immigrant women who have already gone on strike three times and are still on strike! Who stand up to the big employers! Who demand work with rights and a life with dignity. Who have inspired with their struggle, the workers all over Attica, which is heard from all over Greece and has now gone beyond its borders.
All the companies in our industry, all the groups, set in their annual goals to increase the percentage of women employees. Of course, no woman is hired with a salary at the level of our needs, with stable working hours, without stand-by, with guaranteed places in nurseries for all children and so on. Instead, in order to increase their profits, they savagely exploit the female workforce, they force us to work with flexible working relations, without labour and insurance rights, they make our lives a rubber band, eliminating our free time.
In order to say that they are protecting us, they are also bringing in anachronistic work regulations, as demanded by labour bill Hatzidakis, which protect us from the only form of violence they consider to be the only form of violence we receive at work, namely sexual harassment. We know full well that no such regulation has protected any of us from harassment by our supervisor, from overtime. It did not protect any of us from being fired. All governments, in the name of ‘reconciling family and work life’ have passed laws that have made ‘normal’ life and hours rubber-stamping, working on Sundays, fixed-term contracts, teleworking, with heavy consequences for women’s physical and mental health.
In the face of a broken public health care system, we are sold that some of us are lucky in the industry to have private insurance, but they hide the fact that even the annual gynecological checkup is not covered unless the doctor lies on the receipt. Women’s needs are counted as a cost to the state, and even maternity is considered obsolete and everything that comes from it. That is why, moreover, it is the responsibility of all governments to maintain the unacceptable provision of 200 credits for the last two years as a condition for maternity allowance and leave, which excludes thousands of working women from even the most basic maternity protection measures.
We are fighting for the modern needs of working and unemployed women, for the guarantee of all those economic and social conditions that will enable them to stand on their own two feet, without encountering obstacles in their work and in their lives.
Against this, today it is realistic and modern to use scientific progress and technological development to ensure that we all have stable jobs with stable working hours and fewer working hours, with Collective Agreements, with decent wages that meet our needs, work without stand-by and on-call, with health and safety measures, effective protection of maternity and the female body in the workplace. We demand an exclusively public and free extensive network of social services and structures for health, education, welfare, care and pre-school education for our children, so that they can develop in a holistic way.
We oppose the commercialisation of every aspect of social life, of the female body, the commercialisation of surrogacy, of sexuality, even of the process of having children. All of the above are profitable sectors with global networking, through legal or illegal circuits, which bring huge profits to states and companies.
Our weapon is our collective action in our trade union, the strengthening of the SETA. The demand for a sectoral Collective Labour Agreement, so that no one negotiates alone and no one alone with the employers. We are building a real shield of protection against the multiform violence and inequality against women. In the collective struggle, reactionary concepts of the status of women and gender relations are being broken in practice. By strengthening this orientation, our trade union can become a beehive of solidarity for every working woman.
The struggle of our colleagues in the call centres, the shocking block of the SETIP in the strike on 28 February, show us the way!
We honor this year’s March 8 by participating in the work stoppage announced by the Athens Workers’ Center on Friday, March 8, 11:00-15:00. We join our voice with the students and participate in the rally at 12:00 at the Propylaea with a common demand for the withdrawal of the reactionary bill on private universities.
On Saturday 9 March we participate in the big solidarity festival organized by our union to strengthen the solidarity of the students and the students’ union.
This 8th of March finds our union in the midst of the great struggle in call centres for wage increases, the signing of collective contracts, the abolition of the modern slavery of the special purpose visas. It could not, therefore, not be dedicated to the call center workers, the mothers, the students, the immigrant women who have already gone on strike three times and are still on strike! Who stand up to the big employers! Who demand work with rights and a life with dignity. Who have inspired with their struggle, the workers all over Attica, which is heard from all over Greece and has now gone beyond its borders.
All the companies in our industry, all the groups, set in their annual goals to increase the percentage of women employees. Of course, no woman is hired with a salary at the level of our needs, with stable working hours, without stand-by, with guaranteed places in nurseries for all children and so on. Instead, in order to increase their profits, they savagely exploit the female workforce, they force us to work with flexible working relations, without labour and insurance rights, they make our lives a rubber band, eliminating our free time.
In order to say that they are protecting us, they are also bringing in anachronistic work regulations, as demanded by labour bill Hatzidakis, which protect us from the only form of violence they consider to be the only form of violence we receive at work, namely sexual harassment. We know full well that no such regulation has protected any of us from harassment by our supervisor, from overtime. It did not protect any of us from being fired. All governments, in the name of ‘reconciling family and work life’ have passed laws that have made ‘normal’ life and hours rubber-stamping, working on Sundays, fixed-term contracts, teleworking, with heavy consequences for women’s physical and mental health.
In the face of a broken public health care system, we are sold that some of us are lucky in the industry to have private insurance, but they hide the fact that even the annual gynecological checkup is not covered unless the doctor lies on the receipt. Women’s needs are counted as a cost to the state, and even maternity is considered obsolete and everything that comes from it. That is why, moreover, it is the responsibility of all governments to maintain the unacceptable provision of 200 credits for the last two years as a condition for maternity allowance and leave, which excludes thousands of working women from even the most basic maternity protection measures.
We are fighting for the modern needs of working and unemployed women, for the guarantee of all those economic and social conditions that will enable them to stand on their own two feet, without encountering obstacles in their work and in their lives.
Against this, today it is realistic and modern to use scientific progress and technological development to ensure that we all have stable jobs with stable working hours and fewer working hours, with Collective Agreements, with decent wages that meet our needs, work without stand-by and on-call, with health and safety measures, effective protection of maternity and the female body in the workplace. We demand an exclusively public and free extensive network of social services and structures for health, education, welfare, care and pre-school education for our children, so that they can develop in a holistic way.
We oppose the commercialisation of every aspect of social life, of the female body, the commercialisation of surrogacy, of sexuality, even of the process of having children. All of the above are profitable sectors with global networking, through legal or illegal circuits, which bring huge profits to states and companies.
Our weapon is our collective action in our trade union, the strengthening of the SETA. The demand for a sectoral Collective Labour Agreement, so that no one negotiates alone and no one alone with the employers. We are building a real shield of protection against the multiform violence and inequality against women. In the collective struggle, reactionary concepts of the status of women and gender relations are being broken in practice. By strengthening this orientation, our trade union can become a beehive of solidarity for every working woman.
The struggle of our colleagues in the call centres, the shocking block of the SETIP in the strike on 28 February, show us the way!
We honor this year’s March 8 by participating in the work stoppage announced by the Athens Workers’ Center on Friday, March 8, 11:00-15:00. We join our voice with the students and participate in the rally at 12:00 at the Propylaea with a common demand for the withdrawal of the reactionary bill on private universities.
On Saturday 9 March we participate in the big solidarity festival organized by our union to strengthen the solidarity of the students and the students’ union.