The economy is booming, but factories are closing. Who is to blame?

Recently, on the occasion of the factory closing Yola Glass Factory in Egaleo, There are some publications that reproduce the thinking in clear and specific contradiction. How do a series of economic indicators show that Greece is going through a stage of capitalist development while at the same time large factories are closing their doors?

In related reports, there is also a brief historical review of recent years of many large factories that have stopped working, resulting in the unemployment of hundreds of workers and the withering of entire regions.

The image of mass layoffs, but also the development possibilities that are being undermined today, Much worse if we consider the extent of its impact, for example. The urban strategy of “green transition” in Western Macedonia or the closure of LARCO in the Stria region and beyond.

Let us return to what was mentioned in the recent news^*. We will remind you of some facts, which can also be considered as “simple lessons in political economy” for the officials of the New Republic Party government, who often pronounce – without understanding – “I am a capitalist” (and they are not, they simply call themselves that because they serve – they They defend a specific system), sometimes they play the tape saying that factories are closed due to “strikes, PAME and struggles” or in certain moments of sarcastic honesty on their part they say “this is the free market system”.

We begin by mentioning some large production units that have been closed in recent years. milk production plantdelta” In Platy Imathia, transformer production plant “Schneider Electric” At the Innovita factory “Pizza” In Attica, from “frigoglass” In Achaia, from “The Crown of Hellas Cannes” In Patras and elsewhere.

For the benefit of the place?

The first and biggest truth: Capitalists and business giants do not invest for the “good of the place”, to provide jobs for workers and take care of their families, because they have a good soul. What they care about and judge their investment plans is the pursuit of maximum profit. Let's look at some relevant examples:

• The “DELTA” factory in Platy Imathia was closed, and the production of the famous “evaporated milk” was moved abroad.
• The Petsos factory was closed and similar production activity of the multinational company Bosch was transferred to Turkey.
• When it closed its unit in Greece, Fregoglass was employing 5,000 workers abroad. In previous years, it invested more than 20 million euros in Nigeria.

The majority of these units belong to business giants that are active in more than one industry. They did not close factories just because they “did not go out.” They had sales in the billions and production and distribution networks in dozens of countries around the world.

For example, Crown Hellas Cannes, which closed its unit in Patras in 2023, achieved sales of 177 million euros in 2021, an increase of 12.3% compared to 2020, while its net profits reached 3.5 million euros, a 563 percent increase compared to In 2020.

Therefore, the parent company of Schneider Electric in Oinovita (closed in 2020) is a true industrial giant, with units and network in more than 115 countries. Globally, the group had a turnover of €27.2 billion in 2019, equivalent to the GDP of a small country.

A cup of lemon squeezed by workers

The second fact: These units, many of which ran for decades, generated huge profits from the sweat of their workers. For several years, especially during the capitalist economic crisis, they took advantage of the anti-people legislative framework created by bourgeois governments, imposed flexible labor relations, intensified work, carried out layoffs, etc.

They enjoyed the support of the state and bourgeois governments in many forms. In other cases, they were “cut off” from loans, others received grants, others joined development laws, others joined together, and so on.

So when they decided that another productive activity, or moving production to another country, would be more profitable for them, while they were loaded with millions, they threw the workers out into the street. Governments and ministers used to say: “We feel sad, but this is how the free market is,” while they then called for the necessity of legislating other measures in order to make the investment environment more attractive.

Third fact: In many of these factories, for many years or even during the period when discussions about their closure began, with great responsibility borne by some unionized employers, there was no workers' mobilization. They sometimes emphasized that “we will also have a share of profitability”, and sometimes that “nothing is done with games, let's see what we can get by having a dialogue”.

Who opens and closes factories?

In conclusion, When the economy “flies”… it does so precisely because the workers groan because the economy is capitalist. What will be produced, in what quantities, where it will be produced, and by what means it will be produced, is determined by the unwritten, but iron, law of capitalist profit.

This determines the opening and closing of business. This, and the capitalist economy is responsible for the fact that the gap between how they can live based on the possibilities of time and how they actually live is constantly widening. Precisely, because the increase in the profitability of the groups was a condition for the intensity of worker exploitation even when the reserve army of the unemployed was fixed at one million people in Greece.

Factories do not close due to workers' struggles. Quite the opposite happens, Seeing the individual's positive and negative experience in the recent period. For workers to win even minimally, the monopoly group must “lose.” The only winning line of struggle is the one which shows that the workers have no common interests with the capitalists. Moreover, the LARCO example proves that workers' struggle is what keeps the plant open and the hope of reopening.

As in periods of capitalist development, the profits are not “shared”, but rather the working time is increased, the intensity of exploitation is increased and with modern means and wages do not even reach the middle of the month. Thus, even in times when the clouds of capitalist crisis are thickening, they are thrown out into the street, their wages are reduced, and so on.

Only by strengthening this line can workers build the “shields” of today. Separating certain conquests or preventing or delaying the implementation of countermeasures. Only along this line can workers' unity be strengthened, and participation in the organization of the class struggle, in the collective functions of the bodies of the workers' movement.

Only along this line do workers gain greater confidence in their own strength and the belief that there is a way out of today's brutality is strengthened. How today there is every possibility for the workers, who produce everything, to take matters into their own hands by overpowering the shareholders – the parasites who offer nothing to society, except the appropriation of the vast wealth which they do not produce.

reference: * “The 10 factories that closed in the last 5 years”xgunari, tovima.gr

s. M.

• Reposted from Radical Weekend