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The last four years Vio.Me, a worker occupied, self-managed factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, has been an international symbol of grassroots resistance, cooperation, and hope against harsh economic austerity. In its meteoric rise to electoral success on an anti-austerity platform, Syriza elevated this symbolism. Party leader and current prime minister of the country, Alex Tsipras, pledged to support the workers in their pay dispute with the factory owners. Now, however, Syriza is silent and the factory is just days away from being sold off. Instead, Syriza prepares to pursue fresh rounds of painful austerity in the New Year. In a recent visit to the factory, we found the workers’ continuing steely resolve and desire to live with dignity in the face of multiple crises was palpable. There is much we can learn from in the global struggle against unjust austerity and precariousness.
Vio.Me produces natural soaps and cleaning products, but it didn’t always. A flood of cheap lending in real estate accompanied Greece’s entry into the eurozone in 2001. The construction industry boomed as the Olympic Games came home in 2004. In industrial northern Greece, managers of the Johnson Vio.Me factory organized workers to produce adhesives and tiles. As the euro-crisis hit, demand for their products disappeared. In August 2011 the owners abandoned the factory, with the company owing workers at least three months’ pay totalling millions of euros.
Since 2008, the Greek economy has contracted by 25 percent, in many industries wages have decreased by half, and unemployment continues to skyrocket. Jobs in the Greek construction sector have declined by more than 68 percent. Determined not to bloat the statistics themselves, and instead take their lives into their own hands, the ex-Johnson Vio.Me workers decided to occupy the abandoned factory and put themselves to work.
They had formed a union in 2006 and so were able to act swiftly, swapping the production of toxic chemical based adhesives for more environmentally sustainable materials including, essential oils, vinegar and olive oil. Industrial chemists advised them on the required adaptations. Worker health improved. Their soap labels explain products are “made by the workers of Vio.Me, who refused to fall into unemployment and depression.”
The Vio.Me social co-operative consists of 21 participants, with 12 workers active on the site. Decisions are made collectively in open assemblies, and workers learn how to do one another's jobs. Everybody is paid the same wage. Supporters of Vio.Me can help build solidarity networks by pledging to buy products or paying 3.00 eruos per month in exchange for information on the workers’ struggle and participation in decision making assemblies.
This structure has helped Vio.Me survive the turbulence of the Greek economic crisis. They have survived it despite obtaining little to no support from their local municipal representatives. Theo Karyotsis, an interpreter for Vio.Me workers, puts the lack of support down to the Kallikratis Plan. Under the plan, local councils are being re-structured moving the seat of administrative power miles away from local struggles like Vio.Me.
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Vio.Me: Self-Organization in Greece @USILive https://t.co/SLFVk72FOv
— Biçda (@bicda)
agosto 2, 2015
Similar restructuring is being actively pursued by the Conservative government in the U.K. Beneath the smokescreen of “devolving power” the party propose a reduction in the numbers of elected representatives and stripping power from citizen-led initiatives.
Political disenfranchisement is already high in the U.K., large numbers of people do not vote, or increasingly vote for parties scapegoating migrants, Muslims and the European Union for causing social and economic disarray. Further alienation from prevailing political processes while the wealthy take larger and larger pieces of the wealth pie is dangerous. We need deeper democracy, not less, tighter control over unregulated capitalism, not less.
The recently announced closure of the Redcar Steelworks factory in Teesside, northern England, has thrown 2,100 skilled steel workers into unemployment, along with a similar number of contractors. The company that owned the site is now in liquidation. Joan Heggie, a research fellow at Teeside University estimates that the cost to the taxpayer for site environmental clean-up could be enormous - as high as GPB £1 billion.
Councillor Sue Jeffrey (Leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council) said the Government has had “plenty” of opportunities to intervene but it has “just allowed this to happen.” While banks are too big to fail – and must be bailed out – producers are allowed to fail.
Unlike Vio.Me in Greece, while the British labour unions initially resisted closure of the steelworks factory, they finally capitulated. They are now collecting toys as Christmas presents for the laid off workers and their struggling families. Charity: toys and food banks replace work.
Ambitious industrial scale transition strategies on a scale fit for Redcar Steelworks have been attempted in the UK before. In 1976, the Lucas Aerospace facility in Birmingham producing military hardware for the U.K. government was threatened with closure. Rather than passively accept redundancy, Lucas Aerospace workers redeployed their expert engineering skills towards coming up with a plan that would meet the most pressing civilian social needs of their time. In January 1976, the Financial Times described the Lucas Plan as, “one of the most radical alternative plans ever drawn up by workers for their company.” The plan was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
With Thatcherism taking hold in the U.K. and trade unions teetering, the Lucas Aerospace Plan was never received the backing it deserved. Thatcher lives on in the austerity policies imposed in Greece and the UK. States pander to profit, we all lose out. In Greece, the owners of the Johnson Vio.Me factory received State subsidies until the bitter end, and still failed to pay workers’ their wages for more than three months. While accrued workers’ wages in the UK are protected, their future livelihoods are not.
Vio.Me type factory occupations offer a glimpse into alternative possibilities where the innovation, creativity and independence of workers is supported by communities, near and far. They have proved good for workers, their families and the environment. Unions in the U.K. will need to consider more militant direct action as inequality widens rapidly.
Vio.Me was scheduled to be auctioned in late November 2015. The auction was postponed after a large grassroots mobilization, which hopes to find an alternative civil society led political solution. Other Greek occupations have resulted in legalised permits being granted. Acting for autonomy and dignity in the face of unemployment is surely better than the wealthy adding more brick and cement to the long list of large derelict spaces they already own. Haunting spaces which collect nothing but dust, dust and the hope of future profits for the 1%, as families go without basic necessities this cold winter season from Thessaloniki to Teesside.
In London, a small group undertook a solidarity action outside the Greek embassy. As the Vio.Me factory faces being transferred into private hands, it is now a symbol of everything that has gone wrong with Alexis Tsipras' government and its inability to protect Greek society from being plundered by the 1 percent. Market forces which threaten to beacon inequality of pre-Victorian levels.
As the workers of Vio.Me and their supporters in Thessaloniki rally for yet another confrontation over the future of the occupied factory, let us offer our support and solidarity, but crucially, let us think about how we can replicate the tactics of their struggle to win a better society for all.
