On the 23rd December a militant immigrant worker from Bulgaria, Kostadina Kuneva, the general secretary of the Panattic Union of Cleaners and Domestic Personnel, was attacked by unknown people who threw sulphuric acid at her face as she was returning home from work.
Kuneva is well known for her militant stance against various bosses. Just last week she had a clash with the employer company “OIKOMET” when she demanded for herself and the rest of her colleagues to get paid the whole amount of money of her Christmas bonus. She also denounced illegal procedures in payments. Just a short while ago the same company fired her mother in an act of revenge against her and she got herself an unfavourable transfer to Marousi station. There is also a case of a three-part meeting in the Labour Inspection Office still pending on the 5/1/2009 concerning a denouncement of hers. Situations like these are not at all rare in the field of cleaning and employee lending companies. It’s exactly the opposite.
This is the rule when it comes to cleaning company contractors: delayed contracts, stolen wages, stolen overtime payments, differences between contract assets and what the employee actually gets paid, selection of almost exclusively immigrant male and female workers with green card status (legal residency in Greece ranging from 1 to 5 years – in most cases only 1 year) so they can be held in a state of hostageship, social security benefits that are never attributed. All these under the support of the public sector and enterprises which are aware, incite and support working conditions reminiscent of the middle ages.
We express our solidarity to Kostadina Kuneva. She is right now in the intensive care unit of Evangelismos Hospital in Athens
For financial support of Kuneva's family you can donate in
Piraeus Bank
DECHEVA ELENA TODOR
KUNEVA KOSTADINA
5012-019021-277
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