On the 27^th of December we occupied the headquarters of ISAP (Athens
Piraeus Electric Railway) as a first response to the murderous attack
against Konstantina Kuneva on the 23-12-2008. Sulphuric acid was thrown at
her face as she was returning home from work.

Konstantina is in the intensive care ward of Evangelismos hospital
suffering serious sight and respiratory system problems. Who was
Konstantina? Why was she attacked?

Konstantina is one among the hundreds of female immigrant workers who have
been working for years as cleaners. She is general secretary of the
Panattic Union of Cleaners and Domestic Personnel. She is a militant union
organizer, well known for her stance against various bosses. Just last
week she had a clash with the employer company “OIKOMET” when she demanded
for herself and the rest of her colleagues to get paid the whole amount of
money of her Christmas bonus. She also denounced illegal procedures in
payments. Just a short while ago the same company fired her mother in an
act of revenge against her and she got herself an unfavourable transfer to
Marousi station. There is also a case of a three-part meeting in the
Labour Inspection Office still pending on the 5-1-2009 concerning a
denouncement of hers. Situations like these are not at all rare in the
field of cleaning and employee lending companies.

It’s exactly the opposite.

This is the rule when it comes to cleaning company contractors: delayed
contracts, stolen wages, stolen overtime payments, differences between
contract assets and what the employee actually gets paid, selection of
almost exclusively immigrant male and female workers with green card
status (legal residency in Greece ranging from 1 to 5 years – in most
cases only 1 year) so they can be held in a state of hostageship, social
security benefits that are never attributed. All these under the support
of the public sector and enterprises which are aware, incite and support
working conditions reminiscent of the middle ages.

OIKOMET in particular, a cleaning company with enterprises all over Greece
and owned by Nikitas Oikonomakis who is a member of PASOK (Greek Socialist
Party), “officially” employs 800 workers – on the other hand, workers say
that their number is at least twice as much and during the last 3 years
the turnover amounts to 3000). Illegal procedures on the part of the
employer company are on the everyday list.

To be more specific, employees sign “blank page contracts” and they are
never given a copy of them. They work 6 hours a day but get paid for 4,5
(including stamp) because in this way they appear to be working less than
30 hours per week on paper and the boss is not forced to include them in
the “higher stamp category”. Employees get terrorized, they get
unfavourable transfers, they get fired and blackmailed into resigning
voluntarily (a female employee was threatened by her employer into signing
her resignation after being held for 4 hours in a space owned by the
company). The boss organised a “yellow” (company) union in order to
manipulate employees while he fires and hires people as he wishes, ruling
out any prospect of communication inside the workplace or collective
action.

What is the connection between OIKOMET and ISAP?

OIKOMET has been assigned as a contractor the cleaning of ISAP (as well as
the cleaning of other public sector and corporations) because it can
“provide” the cheapest deal that includes the highest level of
exploitation and devaluation of work. This “regime” of “offer and demand”
is based on public sector organisations such as ISAP. ISAP is an
accomplice in maintaining this regime of crude exploitation despite
repeated denouncements by the union.

The murderous attack against our colleague was an act of revenge and had
the intent to serve as an example. The target was not coincidental.
Female, immigrant, militant union organizer, mother of an underage child,
she was the most vulnerable for the bosses.

The method was not coincidental. It resembles “dark” ages and aims to
“brand”, to serve as an example and terrorize us. The time chosen was not
coincidental. The media, the political parties, the Church, businessmen
and union bosses have been trying to ridicule the social movement that has
taken the form of an explosion and talk about the cold-blooded murder of
15-year-old Alexandros as the result of a bullet getting redirected. In
this pretext, the attack on Konstantina is lost in the everyday news.

This murderous attack on the part of the employers was well-planned.
Konstantina is one of us. Her struggle for DIGNITY and SOLIDARITY is also
our struggle.

The attack on Konstantina has left a mark in all our hearts. It has left a
mark in our memory as have done the racist pogroms, the concentration
camps for immigrants, the attacks by thugs working for the state, the
workplace accidents, the people murdered by the state, the working
conditions that resemble galleys, the purges, the lay-offs and the terror.
All these show the long way ahead for the social and class struggle. Our
hearts are filled with sorrow and rage and one sentence comes to our lips:
MURDERERS, YOUR TIME WILL COMETHE EMPLOYERS TERROR SHALL NOT PASS
SOLIDARITY ASSEMBLY FOR KONSTANTINA KUNEVA.