(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) - Class struggle - Call for solidarity with 595 maids Ministry of Greek finances (fr, pt)

[machine translation]

Call ---- for an international day of solidarity with the 595 housekeepers Ministry of 
Greek finances ---- We maids the Ministry of Finance, who have lost our jobs since 
September 17, 2013, we propose to join forces and organize an international day of 
solidarity on Saturday, September 20. ---- We maids the Ministry of Finance, which has 
been removed from our work September 17, 2013 in order to give it to private contractors, 
we are committed for 11 months in a struggle for life , against the policies austerity and 
those who apply, Samaras government and the Troika. ---- Every day we walk down the street 
and we claim our work and our rights, resisting police violence and government propaganda. 
Greek court agreed with us, but the government refuses to comply and enforce the court 
decision.

We ask you, citizen groups and social movements, unions of employees, women's 
organizations, politicians and citizens around the world parties, you who do not accept 
the injustice and share the suffering of its victims, and to express high your strong 
solidarity our struggle for life and dignity, a fight is your fight too.

We propose to join forces and organize:

An international day of solidarity

We offer the period from September 15 to 22 , the week before the final court decision on 
the 595 housekeepers, which will be made on September 23. 's international day of 
mobilization could take place Saturday, Sept. 20.

The objective could be various solidarity actions such as rallies and public 
demonstrations, protests in front of embassies and consulates Greek, buildings IMF in 
Washington and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt or any other place of your choice.

We are already preparing the participation of a delegation from the maids fighting for a 
demonstration to be held at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 16 and 17 September.

If you are willing to participate in this initiative, please let us know no later than 
August 30, so we can find out which countries and cities will participate.

See also: http://595katharistries.wordpress.com https://www.facebook.com/595kathari...

Contact: Sonia Mitralia, sonia.mitralia@gmail.com, Tel: 0030 2109420681, 0030 693229511

Do HOPE THAT WE WILL FOLD!

We are the 595 housekeepers Ministry of Finance have lost our jobs since 17 September 2013 
The government has dismissed us and chose to attribute our work to subcontractors without 
making any budgetary savings. Our salary was between 300-600 euros per month. We are not 
numbers, we are human.

We did not head down. Since September 17 we have every day in the street and we claim our 
work, we claim our lives.

The Government is trying by all means to suppress our just struggle. Images of beating 
defenseless women 50-60 years by riot police (MAT) have been around the world.

A number of us have been hospitalized following barbaric aggression and unjustified police 
against us.

We opted for dignity. Ten months of struggle, ten full months of poverty and problems! But 
we continued to fight. We continue our struggle. We assert the obvious, the right to life.

A wave of solidarity is sweeping society. Workers laid off, unemployed, students, 
students, retirees and artists show their support by all means.

Greek Justice agreed with us and yet the government refuses to respect and enforce 
judicial decisions. He takes it out on us because we have chosen to live in dignity.

Solidarity is the weapon of the people. We ask all of you to express your solidarity with 
the struggle for life and dignity we lead. We ask you to sign the text support and 
collecting signatures that will force the Government to implement the judgment of the 
Greek Justice, without any budgetary cost.

TOGETHER WE CAN PREVENT THESE POLICIES BARBARES

595 women of Greek household:
11 months of bitter struggle against the government and the Troika

Sonia Mitralia -?????????????

After 11 months of a long and bitter fight, limog?es since September, subjecting status of 
"availability" or laid off after eight months, 595 housekeepers Public Service became the 
embodiment, the symbol, the soul, life-even in the most fierce resistance against the 
austerity in Greece! These women have become in turn "political issue" and the leadership 
of all current resistance against the policy of the Troika, daring to face an enemy as 
powerful as the Greek government, the European Central Bank, the Commission and the IMF...

And yet, after the 11 months of fighting, after defying and have become the main enemy of 
the government and the Troika, having bypassed the implementation of austerity measures, 
after a high-profile presence on the political scene These maids fighting are still not 
regarded as a political subject by opponents of austerity.

Yet since the beginning of austerity measures imposed by the Troika, women took to the 
streets in mass and strength seem to have a special and rich political lessons own dynamics.

During these four years of austerity policies that have transformed Greece into a heap of 
social, economic and especially human ruins, we spoke only very few women's lives and of 
course even less of their struggles against the dictates Troika. So it was with surprise 
that the public has welcomed the exemplary struggle made entirely by women. But is this 
really a surprise?

They participated in the 26 mass general strikes. In the Occupy movement, they occupied 
the places they camped protestors. They rallied at the forefront of the occupation and 
self-management of ERT * Copies, they were the soul of the meetings of strikers university 
administrators in education and universities against the "availability" is -to say 
dismissal after eight months with 75% of their salary.
25,000 civil servants, mostly women, will be affected by the downsizing of public 
services. They also constitute the overwhelming majority (95%) of volunteers Solidarity 
Movement and self-managed clinics that try to deal with the medical and humanitarian crisis.

The massive participation of women in resistance movements against the destruction of the 
welfare state in the policies of austerity, is therefore not a surprise, it is not 
accidental: first, and we know The status of women is in the eye of the storm of 
austerity. The destruction of the welfare state and public services detonated their lives 
as workers predominate in the public service and as major utilities qu'usag?res, women are 
doubly affected by the cuts of all kinds.

So they have a thousand reasons not to accept the historical regression of their status as 
women, which would amount to a real return to the 19th century!

It is true that at first they do not d?marquaient themselves as "political subject women", 
sharing the same claims and the same types of struggles with men in the movement. They 
were numerous, that's all.

But already in the pioneering struggle against gold mining in the region Skouries in 
Halkidiki in northern Greece, opposing the Canadian multinational company "Eldorado", 
women were quickly distinguished by their shapes control and radicalism. And if the press 
and the public were unaware of the impact of gender identity on how to fight, the police 
did not do much! Indeed, had targeted the riot police especially women, using a ferocious 
and selective to terrorize the entire population through THEY repression to crush any 
disobedience and resistance movement. Criminalized, imprisoned, they were subjected to 
humiliating abuse, as sex and... specific to their bodies and their kind...!

In a second step, the women expressed initiatives and forms specific to their struggles.

It all started when to impose the toughest part of its austerity program and meet 
commitments to its creditors, the government has targeted high priority housekeeping 
Ministry of Finance, Administration Tax and customs. He placed in the mechanism already 
available since late August, resulting in what they cover three-quarters of their salary 
to 550 euros for eight months before they were finally dismissed. The government has 
followed exactly the same strategy as Skouries. The goal is to first tackle the weakest 
and least likely to be supported... that is to say, the housekeepers, and then from the 
bulk of the employees by the wayside, that is ie lead to the dismissal of 25,000 public 
servants!... And this in a time when resistance movements were bled dry by austerity 
without end, being atomized, tired, exhausted, vulnerable...

He believed that "with this group of workers," these poor women "low class" affecting wage 
of just 500 euros, he thought, not very smart (hence the slogan maids: " We're not 
bitches, we're maids " ), he quickly ended up crashing like flies.

The goal is to privatize the work of housekeepers as a gift to private companies cleaning. 
Those known to be champions of tax fraud mafia companies rehire with salaries of 200 euros 
per month, or 2 euros per hour, with partial insurance, no labor law, which is equivalent 
to conditions of semi-slavery and galley.

These limog?es women and sacrificed on the altar of cannibalism Troika, women 45 to 57 
years, often single mothers, divorced, widowed, indebted, with dependent children or 
husbands unemployed or disabled, being either unable to touch it and retire early after 20 
years of work, and deprived of any opportunity to find a job, then decided not to let 
them. They took their own lives!

And now a handful of women decide to shake up the routine forms of struggle of traditional 
unions. Some are taking the initiative to organize by and for themselves, a core of maids 
who had already fought and won 10 years earlier to get long-term contracts. They worked 
like ants, patiently weaving a spider web across the country...

And as these servants of the Ministry of Finance were thrown into the street and strike 
has no meaning for them, they decided to make a human wall with their bodies in the street 
in front of the main entrance Department of Finance Square "Syntagma," the square outside 
parliament, the most emblematic square of power...

It is no coincidence that these are women who have given rise to forms of struggle 
imaginative. Stigmatized because of their gender and class, marginalized by the unions and 
having no links with the traditional organizations of the Greek left, they had to make 
noise to be heard, to be heard, they had create an image to be visible!

Passive strikes, days of ephemeral and ineffective actions, they have replaced the direct 
and collective action. They rely on non-violence, humor and spectacular. With crowns of 
thorns on his head at Easter, with past around their necks outside the headquarters of the 
party New Democracy, with music and dancing they claim rope: rehiring and for all now! All 
this is unprecedented in Greece...

They occupy and block access to the department and above all they chase the Troika members 
when they want to enter the department (!) Causing them to flee and ran out the door of 
service, together with their bodyguards. They face and fight hand to hand with special 
police units. Every day they invent new shares, which are reported in the media, they 
alert the whole population: in short they break isolation.

And now, what usually was represented by a statistical lifeless and soulless, with the 
number of record unemployment, poverty, here is that these "abstractions" are humanized, 
acquire a face, become women flesh, which in addition have a personality and its own 
political will. They call Litsa, Despina, Georgia, Fotini, Dimitra... And with their 
example, their courage, their perseverance, their will to win, they give hope to all 
victims of austerity...

But beware, the riot police almost daily brutalize women, for example, because their 
bosses fear contagion. And that's all Greece attending the sad spectacle of these often 
elderly women who, day after day, are trampled, abused and injured by Rambos of the 
police, who could have been their son! And why? Because it's the Troika itself wants them 
down, because they are an example to imitate all the oppressed, because they are at the 
forefront of the anti-austerity protest, not only in Greece but throughout Europe. Because 
their struggle can become contagious...

More than ever, the struggle of these 595 women heroic household is ours. Do not let them 
alone. They fight for us, let us fight for them. Organize European and global solidarity!