The working class and the workers are in front of a huge and
unprecedented challenge. The alarm
declared by the system’s headquarters worldwide because of the corona-virus
pandemic doesn’t have only the side of the immediate threat to health and lives
of the masses. It also has the side of launching a round of intense attacks on
labor and mass rights worldwide.
The system’s forces are already preparing for a new
cycle of recession, another plunge of financial size. The blows received by
entire branches due to the pandemic bans, in parallel with episodes of
intensified economic competition, are sure to be passed on to the working class
and workers everywhere in the world.
Up to 25 million jobs may be lost worldwide due to the
crisis, the United Nations International Labor
Organization (ILO) has warned, while in our country these phenomena have already
begun to appear since this alarm was issued.
The facts are devastating:
- Only in the first two weeks of March were officially
recorded 41.000 redundancies (!), without counting the "voluntary departures" in which workers
were forced into in various sectors and without taking into account the total
recordings in the “Ergani” system which will not appear before the end March. A
typical case is the Intercity buses, where more than 300 redundancies –
“voluntary dismissals” have been recorded and a plethora of labor upheavals in
employment relationships.
- The
number of employees in lockdown businesses are over 1,000,000 who are now in a
state of uncertainty and unsafety for an indefinite period of time. And
this anti-labor domino is not only going to stop, but it will be accelerated.
This is because the measures announced by the government not only they do not
safeguard the workers but also they seriously affect the gains of employees,
they impede a broader concept of "emergency" and "system
resilience", similar (but over-multiplied) to the one on which dozens of
anti-labor adjustments were based on to date.
It is noteworthy that it has already been announced that for workers in these sectors a status of “contract employment suspension” is provided, which means that the employer is exempted from paying salaries. In this new, undisclosed status, employees have the only «certainty» of a €800 allowance for one and a half months and the assurance that the employer will continue to insure them (as far as can be assured).
But the government doesn’t stick to these. It also
gives the ability to "those companies-employers who are severely affected
by the consequences of the corona-virus phenomenon and to adapt their
operational needs to the adverse environment created by the phenomenon". Which means that the government gives the
ability to almost all businesses to put their staff on a peculliar
availability!
This is about a real chop on labor income, but also a
leveling of labor conquests. Not only any collective contracts in working
sectors are canceled, but a new, black page on the labor landscape is opened. The state takes over - on behalf of capital
and employers - the political coverage of the crushing of collective contracts
and wages.
What will prevail in the workplaces after this development (and if there will be no other -corrective - intervention) is as obvious as it is unprecedented. It will be a leap towards the generalization of the working middle age! And as the employer’s discomfort with having to keep their businesses open has already been documented, a real tsunami of redundancies and layoffs is expected.
But all that are coming or will come to accompany
these developments (such as the postponement of the Easter gift payment) are a
first-class opportunity for capital to demolish conquest and rights.
• But for those who
continue to work the landscape is foreseen black. The threat of firement or
"availability" will be much stronger than was in the past. The
blackmails and employer arbitrariness will be even worse. The exhausting hours
already being recorded in the “beneficial” sectors, the abolishment of Sunday's
holiday, the inadequate protection measures for the corona-virus that come to
complement the inadequate health and safety measures which have resulted in
dozens of deaths, injuries and labor sicknesses are sure to be extended due to
the "emergency" and without an expiration date.
• And all this in a landscape of bans of mass demonstrations, gatherings, meetings. That is, in a landscape of criminalization of any collective process that enables employees to organize, resist and claim. With the trade union leaders “giving exams” of "social responsibility", that is compliance and submission to the capital and its government.
• Against this black landscape, against this maelstrom, workers have to undertake a DOUBLE TASK: on one hand, to defend their health (because no one else will do it for them) and on the other, to defend their life and work. To defend the rights and conquests inherited from decades of struggle and the blood of millions of workers. No consensus can exist with those who wag their finger talking about "personal responsibility" the same time that they sacrifice the lives and future of millions of workers. No matter how much they want to keep us isolated and scared to do their disgraces, we will be preparing the conditions - as of today - so that nothing will be left unanswered. Because the antidote to the deadly virus of capitalism was, is and will be the struggles of the working class and
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