The Class Solidarity Assembly and the Workers’ Solidarity and Mutual Assistance Fund
Labor groups, base unions and workers’ committees of Thessaloniki, we all take the initiative to create a fund for the support of workers’ struggles and activists, as well as a coordination for actions. Commonplace to those involved is anti-hierarchical function and class consciousness.
Due to the apparent lack of trade union structures in our workplaces, to the sellout of GSEE’s (Greek General Confederation of Workers) bureaucratic leadership and the syndicalism that is identified with petty-type politics of political parties like PAME (Greek Communist Party), there is a huge gap in the workers’ demands against the patrons and the employers. This gap we aim to overcome with the establishment of the Coordination Assembly, as a means to approach workers and unite with them through Base Syndicalism. What is more, it is through the Fund that we want to focus on the financial support of the workers’ struggles, while through the Coordination Assembly we want to construct a network that would acquire the class reflexes to create and promote workers’ struggles. It is in these struggles that we propose and defend collegial solidarity, base and bottom-up organization through the general assembly and direct action against any employer arbitrariness.
The establishment of a fund, like theWorkers’ Solidarity and Mutual Assistance Fund, as a solidarity structure responds to the unchanging need to create formations and structures for the material support of workers’ struggles. We consider that the Fund -with the effective support of the workers who struggle or suffer from the occupational outrage of capitalism- can consist of a driving force to embark on and continue struggles on worker’s claims. Furthermore, the Fund along with the Coordination of the groups that consist it, namely the Class Solidarity Assembly, could function as the initial basis to bring together forces that share common political imperatives and projects. Our ultimate goal is for Base Syndicalism to gain its own powerful voice and saying on labor matters, so as set it even more centrally and effectively against the discourse of power canals.
As far as the operational part is concerned, when it comes to which needs and which people will be supported by the Fund, we put emphasis on assisting the workers who have been made redundant, those unemployed, those who are sick and those involved in accidents. On one hand, the Fund covers all those that already participate in the structure as well as the collectives that are part of the Coordination Assembly. On the other hand, it is also addressed -without any discrimination- to workers that haven’t had any participation struggles, under the precondition that these people decide to take part into to a workers’ struggle and support the structure of the Fund. However, since it is impossible to determine a priori any demand, the Coordination Assembly will be able to discuss and approve each particular case separately.
The funding of the Fund will stem from events or other initiatives organized by its members, as well as from the optional contribution of each collective, depending on its capacity. We also realize that in order to reach to results in practice it is crucial to have the financial qualifications that will enable the Workers’ Solidarity and Mutual Assistance Fund to live up to the workers’ needs. Therefore, the Fund, apart from the resources provided by its own means, invites all the collectives and individuals that wish to contribute to its financial reinforcement.
The Fund’s and Coordination’s Asembly involves the members from the collectives and the unions that consist it and it takes place once a month.
Contact Email: ergatikos-sintonismos@espiv.net