DISY leadership’s goal is to attack all workers
DISY party Bill criminalizes the right to strike
Written Statement of Georgos Loucaides, AKEL C.C. Spokesperson
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 7th April 2016, Nicosia
The draft Bill tabled by DISY party President Averof Neophytou does not regulate, but criminalizes the right to strike. The procedure of strike action in essential services has been set out since 2004 by an agreement reached between the social forces.
Averof’s proposal destroys a correct custom: consultation between social forces. This bill threatens with imprisonment one social force only – working people. Employers violate the labour code and contracts. They act arbitrary and issue threats. It goes without saying that Mr. Neophytou did not think about proposing imprisonment for employers.
The attempts and intentions of the leadership of the governing DISY party are visible to every working person. They are looking for a pretext and an opportunity to make labour relations even worse for workers.
The essential services are the pretext. Their goal is to attack all working people. For them the fact that the robbery committed by the banks has been shifted by various ways onto working people’s backs is not enough. At the same time they also want to impose an authoritarian and police model that will limit the waging of social and labour struggles against any employer’s arbitrariness and intransigence.
AKEL militantly and unequivocally stands together with the working people and against the attempts by DISY and the employer’s organizations to undermine workers’ rights. We call on DISY to withdraw the bill and to at last respect the procedures foreseen in the context of labour relations.
