In a statement regarding the monstrous labor law of the ND government, the Press Office of the CC of the KKE stressed the following:

"The legislative monstrosity of the government, which has been made public, aims to turn the whole country into a large, special economic zone of unaccountability of the capital, banning trade union freedoms and silencing any voice struggling for labor rights.

This bill brings major reversals, since:

For the first time in our country the 10-hour work is legislated, 134 years after the Chicago strike and exactly 100 years after the first legislation of the 8-hour work in Greece.

In the government statement it is described that: "... Companies will be able to employ workers for a maximum of 10 hours a day, without additional remuneration, if within the same 6 months they settle the hours with a corresponding reduction of hours or time off or days of leave ... ", while in another point " addition of companies and jobs to the list that already allows work on Sunday " is provided. Thus, workers as modern-day slaves will be forced to work 10 hours of unpaid overtime for almost 6 months, with the sole precondition that employers give them a few days off during the same period.

The ban on strikes concerning employees working in the Public Sector, the Local Authorities, the Legal Persons Governed by Public Law and in most of big workplaces, 44 years after the despicable Laskaris law, is essentially restored.

The government bill also states that "... the registration in the already legislated General Register becomes a precondition for the exercise of trade union rights”, i.e. it unleashes a hunt against trade unions, creating an overt filing mechanism for those employees who choose to organize their struggle. They seek to keep a file on unionized workers, which will be at the disposal of the ministry and the employers.

The average salary is further reduced, "flexibility" is extending and at the same time the Organization of Mediation and Arbitration (OMED), where the state and the employers have the majority, is upgraded as the supreme regulator.

These are just some of the crimes against workers being committed at the request of the capital and the EU that cannot be embellished by any generously funded government propaganda.

At the same time, it is no coincidence that the government chose this particular period of time. It shamefully exploits the outbreak of the pandemic, thinking that in this way it will take the workers by surprise.

The government is very must mistaken. The initiators of the bill will have the fate of the previous ones, who tried to demolish the greatest achievements of the working class and finally went down in history as political caricatures.

It is time for strike, for an organized popular counterattack! "

2.11.2020