CONVOY OF STRUGGLE AND SOLIDARITY
FOR THE STRUGGLE OF THE WORKERS OF “VIOMICHANIKI METALLEUTIKI”
THEY CAN'T? WE CAN!
«It is we who knead and don't have bread, we who dig out the coal and freeze.
It is we who have nothing and are coming to take the world»
Tasos Livaditis
The workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” in Thessaloniki, Greece, are struggling to take the factory from capital's grasp and into their own hands.

As they are unpaid since May 2011 and under suspension of works, the allowance of which ended in September, with great difficulty of survival they struggle to operate the factory again, which the employers has abandoned. The workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki", subsidiary of Philkeram-Johnson, denounce the management of the company for its choices, which led the factory to ceasing works and degenaration, as well as its mockery about the owed accruals. Of course, the choices and the behaviour of the employers is far from random. The crisis in the construction industry, result of the general capitalist crisis, has condemned thousands of workers of the sector, as well as those of the industries directly related to it, to unemployment. The workers of “Vio.Me.” claim to reopen the factory, creating a workers' cooperative under their full control, demanding furthermore legal recognition for both their venture, as also for any and all that will follow. Simultaneously they claim the necessary funds to get the factory running, funds that belong to them anyway, as they are those that produce the wealth. The struggle of the workers of “Vio.Me.” is important not only for the workers of the construction industry, but for all the workers, who daily experience thousands of dismissals and flexible, unpaid and uninsured labour. It is important not only because it calls openly into question the parasitic role of the employers in general, but also because in a society that is destroyed every day by the capitalist crisis it offers the workers the only realistic way out of unemployment and the closing of businesses, while at the same time showing the only way to realise it – the way of struggle, the way of total rupture from the world of the bosses, the way of taking over the means of production by the workers themselves.

But if we want the hope of victory for the struggle of the workers of “Vio.Me.” to be real, and to open the way for a general questioning of the productive and political model of capitalism, then the universal support and active solidarity from all the workers and unemployed of the country is necessary. The struggle of one union is not enough to save society from capitalism's bonds and to destroy its crisis, it is necessary that the union's struggle becomes the struggle of the whole workers' class. A nation-wide movement of support and solidarity is needed, that, with “Vio.Me.” as example, will struggle that the factories and the businesses pass over into the workers' hands, who with direct-democratic base unions will decide by and for themselves, without “outsourcing” to no one their struggles for social liberation.

Now that the unemployed near 2 million, now that the businesses close one after another, now that the state organises continuous tax-attacks against the workers; now is the time to make the struggle for occupation and self-management of all the means of production the struggle of every union, every worker and every unemployed. We call onto every fighting class-union, every unemployed and worker, to support and show solidarity to the struggle of “Vio.Me.”, to fight with us, beginning with participation at the CONVOY OF STRUGGLE AND SOLIDARITY, participating in the diverse actions all over Greece and its nationwide conclusion with a demonstration in Athens at 15/10.

Wholly supporting the proposal of the workers we fight with them for:
The factories in the hands of the workers. Self-management in all workplaces. All means of production should pass into the hands of those who produce the wealth of society. From factories to department stores to land and field, the workers with self-management as their weapon must take over the productive process, manage it by themselves and direct it to benefit the whole society. The struggle of “Vio.Me.” can show actually that the workers can and will exist without bosses.
The struggle in the hands of the workers. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to create and support workers' class base unions, like that of “Vio.Me.”, that will have as their only decisive body the general assembly, which will take militant decisions with direct democracy, far from any form of “outsourcing” and bureaucracy.
Let this struggle become the struggle of us all with a nation-wide general all-workers permanent strike, to overthrow the social medieval conditions of poverty and pauperisation that the local and international capital builds around our lives. Let every business and every factory strike. With a permanent strike, so that the workers' class itself realises its huge power and sweeps away memoranda, measures, troikas, governments and bosses.

The workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” can't change the world by themselves,
but nothing can change if the workers of “Viomichaniki Metalleutiki” stay alone.
This struggle is a struggle of all the workers and unemployed.
It is a struggle of us all! We will overcome!

Open Solidarity Initiative
for support of the struggle of the workers of “Vio.Me.”
e-mail:  protbiometal@gmail.com. Blog of the Union:  http://biom-metal.blogspot.gr