Galery

1

“The man, who attacked me was wearing grey clothes like a policeman,” writes 44 year old Konstantina Kouneva on a piece of paper, announced “Elefterotypia” newspaper. The Bulgarian, who was splashed with acid before the Christmas holidays is still fighting for her life in the Athens “Evangelismos” hospital.

So there are no misunderstandings, she says “clothes like policeman’s” but policemen do not wear grey clothes, so it was probably a work uniform.

Her colleagues are scared to talk even though some of them have not been paid for four months. The ones, who decide to talk, prefer to keep their anonymity.

“I used to work in a hospital, together with 80 colleagues. People from the State Inspectorate came to check us, because we have filed a claim through our syndicate. We filed it because we haven’t been paid for four months. The Inspectorate concluded that we receive 350 Euros and we get free days but we have signed contracts, which say that we should be paid 600 Euros. After that, slowly, slowly they fired us all.”

It is a classic exploitation case in the cleaning field. But how does the system function? Private firm take orders for cleaning public establishments and hospitals. The main criterion is the low price of the service and from then on, no one cares how the employer manages to lower the price.

In the case of ECOMET, where Konstantina Kouneva used to work, the decrease of the price comes when the workers sign personal contracts, with which they are obliged to rest between 30 and 45 minutes. This way, their work hours decrease to 5 hours and 30 minutes--in other words, the time determined by law, which allows workers to get health insurance decreases.

Most workers in this sector are immigrants, who need to work no matter of the bad conditions. This way, their employers do not hesitate to exploit them and to keep them working under bad conditions by constantly threatening them with dismissal.

Frequently, the more beautiful girls become victims of sexual abuse by employers upper in the hierarchy. The victims are young girls – foreigners, who do not speak the language and a pressured by their financial situation. They also need legal apprenticeship in order to be able to get the necessary documents for permanent residence in Greece.

“Kathemerini” newspaper published Konstantina Kouneva’s last interview, which was done by a Belgian photojournalist Jackie DeLorme, who deals with labor and social topics. DeLorme was in Greece at the end of November of last year and was researching workers hired by cleaning offering firms.

“They have threatened to kill me”