Concrete factory workers to continue strike

The head of the contractors’ association (OEV) called on all parties not to give up on talks on Wednesday, after concrete manufacture workers endorsed a renewal of the call to indefinite strike.

Workers at ready-mixed concrete factories were set to continue the strike on Wednesday, after employers rejected the negotiation framework submitted by the labour minister.

OEV member Stelios Gabriel said the problem must be solved by end-of-week as the strike was causing “disproportionate” harm to the building industry.

All sorts of work have been affected by the strike he detailed, including bricklaying, plastering and exterior works, as well as ironworks and molding.

The industry must “get back to normal” as the hiatus was surely having an effect on the economy, he added.

Trade unions Sek, Peo, and Deok expressed their dissatisfaction on Tuesday over what they called an “unfortunate intervention” by Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou in the unresolved dispute.

Panayiotou was spreading misleading impressions and damaging their credibility union leaders charged, by urging “both sides” to accept the proposed framework and suspend strikes.

Earlier on Tuesday, the concrete makers employers’ association had ordered striking workers to get back to work with association head Costas Kythreotis claiming non-union members were being threatened.

The unions had responded positively to participation in Tuesday’s meeting “despite the fact that we did not agree on all the content of the framework”, general-secretary Stelios Tsiapoutis told the Cyprus News Association (CNA).

The employers had rejected attendance at the meeting called by the minister in an effort to reconcile the two parties’ claims.

As a result “all the effort we made in the previous days to find a solution was wasted,” Tsiapoutis said.
“Today [Wednesday} we are continuing our strike normally, without any problems [and] the strike will continue until the workers’ [completely justified] struggle is vindicated,” he added.

Meanwhile the construction workers’ union general-secretary Michalis Papanikolaou said that the problem had arisen from the employers’ violation of agreements.

“Someone must finally tell the truth [that] the responsibility [lies with] the employer side and not put it on the workers,” he said.

He called for the construction workers employers’ association to put pressure on their colleagues in the concrete-manufacturing industry to resolve the issue.