News

Three dead colleagues, bank employees working in Marfin - Egnatia Bank are the victims of riots occurred at the end of the peaceful labour demonstration in the center of Athens.



The three unfortunate employees were trapped in the branch which bursted into flames, and lost their lives unable to find their way out.



OTOE explicitly condemns such acts of violence, which cannot solve any of the problems of society and of our country and demands the exemplary punishment of the culprits.



But this tragic event which deprived the lives of three colleagues (two women and one man) is the sad result of the unpopular measures which rose anger and protest to hundreds of thousands of workers, and which however, have physical and moral perpetrators.



Physical perpetrators must be found and exemplary punished. Moral perpetrators however must be looked up in politics, the attitude of police but also among Managements of the Banks which through blackmail practices prevent employees from participating in mobilizations and their irresponsibility in taking necessary preventive measures to protect human lives of employees and citizens in a bank branch which for years now are well known targets along the path followed during rallies and labour manifestations.



The Government has however serious responsibilities, and apparently has not properly estimated the extend of the consequences that its decisions have on Greek society concerning the surrender of the country to the troika of the IMF, the ECB and the EU but also to the eternal demands of the local capital.



ΟΤΟΕ, expressing indignation and anger on behalf of all bank employees of the sector and of the whole trade union movement against the natural and moral culprits of the tragic death of three of our colleagues, proclaims a general pan-hellenic strike for Thursday 6 May 2010.



We call upon the government to reexamine its policy, which turns exclusively against the less privileged citizens of our country.



To search for other “way-out solutions”, which will respect weak popular masses and will oblige those truly responsible, to pay for the tragic financial deadlocks that our country is facing.



It is high time for the whole political system to understand that the river of popular rage is not guided, not entrenched and will not stop until there will be justice and democratic governance fully in conformity with the popular sentiment .