Dear friends and supporters of the struggle of VIOME for self-management:
After the overwhelming response of international supporters to our campaign against the liquidation of the company, the workers and solidarity members organized a “Caravan of Struggle and Solidarity” comprising several workers’ struggles that fight for employment and dignity. Participants in the caravan included the workers of self-managed ex-public broadcaster ERT and the laid off cleaners of the Ministry of Finance (both recently reinstated by the government), laid off workers of Halkida Cement factory (a subsidiary of French Lafarge), of the Aluminium of Greece factory in Viotia, laid off schoolteachers and school guards.
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In the meantime, two important court decisions were announced recently, both negative for the struggle of the workers of VIOME for self-management. On the one hand, the workers’ appeal against the bankruptcy of VIOME was rejected, on the grounds that the workers are not legally entitled to make such demand. This is clearly a biased interpretation of the law and a political intervention on behalf of the administrative court.
On the other hand, a different administrative court approved the request of the trustee, the administrator of bankrupt Philkeram, parent company to VIOME, to liquidate the company premises. A possible acquisition of the land would provide legal ground for the eviction of the workers, however this is not an immediate threat. The workers and the solidarity members of VIOME have pledged to remain inside the factory, resist, produce and defend the workers’ controlled company, regardless of any legal actions. The courts have proven once more to be instruments of repression in the hands of the ruling class. However the workers have an absolute legitimation in the eyes of society, since they are placing the common good, the defence of jobs and the productive reconstruction that springs from social self-initiative over the private interests of the few.
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