“The government of the ND, special in all sorts of ‘coverups’, tries – on the occasion of today’s announcements – to cover up the actual robbery carried out at the expense of labour-people income, utilizing the well-known miserable ND-PASOK-SYRIZA (Brutsi-Achtsioglu) law on government definition,” he says in a statement, the KKE’s announcement goes on to say that “the government essentially keeps the minimum wage frozen at the level of EUR 714 net, obliviously ignoring the trade union’s demands for substantial increases, when the generalised price increases in food, rents, broad popular consumption leads the wages to end, based on official figures, on the 19th day for the overwhelming majority of working households. In addition, due to flexible industrial relations, part time with part-time work and life, but also the unacceptable contracts that the same government legislates (white contracts, zero hours), thousands of workers are asked to make it through net wages that do not exceed 350 euros!”. “These are the real numbers, these are the real incomes for the many rather than the lies that are adrifted by the government” the Communist Party notes and adds: “The minimum wage, which 15 years ago with the signing of a National General Collective Convention reached 751 euros, was the basis for the start of working life and concerned young, unmarried, newly recruited and unskilled workers. This amount was paid a small portion of the country’s employees. Today, with the continuing unacceptable laws that have torpedoed collective agreements, with the legislative right held in its hands by the government to define what it wants (see BSE) as a minimum wage, with the right it has acquired to put obstacles to sectoral and operational contracts, the majority of workers have fallen to the lowest level of remuneration, which are now paid at the minimum wage that existed 15 years ago. That is to say, the average wage is generally borne down, which is a burning desire of employers’ associations. Indicatively, based on the data of the Ministry of Labour itself and the WORK system, 53.7% of employees in the private sector are paid under EUR 1,000 gross! 12.7% of them are even paid 500 euros and below!” The Communist Party points out that “the large theft in the three years, i.e. past service benefits and wage maturities, which existed in labour legislation and accounted for 10% increase for every three years of work” and recalling that “the governments of the ND-PASOK-SYRIZA have frozen the right of workers in the three years ‘until unemployment has been reduced’, notes: “Now the government restores it, removing, without a hint of shame, 12 whole years of work (2012 – 2024) for which the government says: “You worked them but it’s like you didn’t work them.” That is, at the same time as the government announces an increase of 40 or 50 euros a month, it puts its hand in the pocket of thousands of workers and steals them, for employers’ sake, 250 euros a month!”. In conclusion, the Communist Party says that at this time workers with their unions and their claims in workplaces and branches succeed in signing collective labour contracts with increases, guarantee rights against employer violence, repression, anti-labour arsenal, methods and obstacles put in place by the government and the Ministry of Labour and emphasises: “There lies hope! In labour struggles for real, substantial, decent wage increases. The country’s workers will give another message to the government and employers’ associations with their participation in the strike on 17 April.”
JV for minimum wage: Government ignores requests for substantial increases
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in Political