PAME wins the first place at the 28th Congress of the Centre of Athens Labor Unions

The “Democratic Militant Cooperation” (DAS), the list which includes communists and other class-oriented forces rallied in PAME, won the first place in the elections for the new Board of the Centre of Athens Labor Unions (EKA) that took place on 31st May and 1st June.

EKA is the biggest territorial organization of trade unions in Greece in which more than 450 unions are registered representing hundreds of thousands of working people who work in the Greek capital.

1422 representatives took part in the elections for the board that comprises of 31 members representing 113,722 workers that took part in the elections of their unions. The valid votes were 1,414. It should be noted that there were 330 fewer representatives than at the Congress in 2010. In addition, PASKE, the grouping of the social democratic party PASOK, participated with 2 lists. DAKE, the grouping of the conservative party of ND, also appeared with two lists, one of which was “New Course”. The results were the following:

• DAS: 393 votes and 9 seats (27,79%)
• “PASKE-EKA”: 221 votes and 5 seats (15,63%)
• “Independent Intervention” (SYRIZA): 216 votes and 5 seats (15,28%)
• “New Course”: 187 votes and 4 seats (13,22%)
• “PASKE- Partners”: 158 votes and 3 seats (11,17%)
• DAKE: 157 votes and 3 seats (11, 10%)
• “Militant Class Unity” (ANTARSYA etc): 71 votes and 2 seats (5,02%)
• “Independent Trade Unionists” (supported by the right-wing party “Independent Greeks”): 9 votes and no seat (0,64%)
• “Workers’ Counterattack”(Trotskyite): 2 votes and 0 seats (0,14%)

Thus, despite the obstacles that the forces of the employer and government-led trade unionism tried to set up and the employers’ mechanisms’ support for them, they did not manage to distort the clear choice of the working people to support the class-oriented forces.

The results also show a clear decline of the forces of PASKE since its two lists received 296 votes, fewer votes than those that its single list received at the Congress in 2010. The results also show the choice of the forces of capital to openly support the “Independent Intervention”.

It is also characteristic that more than 50% of the representatives (almost 100 persons) that voted for the “Independent Intervention” (SYRIZA) are managers and supervisors in the super-markets “Veropoulos”, “Sklavenitis” and “Vasilopoulos” who turned up at the elections in the cars of their companies.