The hunger strike of the three-hundred migrant workers has ended

March 10, 2011 Occupied London

The hunger strike of the three-hundred migrant workers has ended. The
struggle for a world of equality, solidarity and freedom continues…
Thursday, March 10, 2011

Greek original

The hunger strike of the three-hundred migrant workers has ended. The
struggle for a world of equality, solidarity and freedom continues…


On January 25th, 2011 three-hundred migrants in Athens and Thessaloniki
commenced a fierce hunger strike, claiming the most basic things: equal
rights with the local workers and the legalisation of all migrants living,
working and moving across the country.

44 days later and after more than 100 strikers were hospitalised with
serious health issues, the state was forced to drop its intransigent
attitude along with previous threats of deportation of the strikers and to
negotiate officially with them, meeting a significant part of their
demands:

   * Decrease of the required residence time of migrants in the country
in order to submit applications for residence permits to 8 years, down
from 12 years before (this applies to every single migrant living in
the Greek territory)
   * Decrease of the required work credits to 120, from 200 before (same
as for local workers)
   * Decrease of the work credits required for insurance cover to 50,
from 80 before (this applies to all workers, local and migrant)
   * For the three-hundred hunger strikers in particular, the allowance
has been given for them to indefinitely renew their 6-month “state of
tolerance” status until the time when they reach the time and
conditions to receive a residence permit. During that time they will
be allowed to travel freely to and from their country of origin.The
three-hundred migrant strikers risked their lives not on the basis of
individualistic or utilitarian motives but for a collective right, in
a struggle that asserted rights concerning the dignity of the entire
working class. This hunger strike is a social struggle against the
illegality of all migrants, a struggle addressing the entire class of
workers. It comes as a continuation of struggles of the recent past,
from the farmer-migrants in Manoliada, Ilia and Skala, Lakonia to the
strike of the fishermen-migrants in Michaniona, Thessaloniki.The
struggle of the three-hundred migrant workers proves nothing is
impossible.

     If the three-hundred achieved this, imagine what thousands of
migrants-workers-repressed can achieve together

Assembly of solidarity of
anarchists/anti-authoritarians/libertarians/comrades