PAME union slams coffee shop chain over workers rights
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
PAME workers union has taken up issue against the immensely popular Mikel coffee shop chain, denouncing the employer for binding its workers with extreme penalty clauses in private contracts
The communist party affiliated union in its public denouncement states that the company is forcing employees to sign contacts with clauses that penalize them with thousands of euros if for a year after their possible layoff, or resignation, they seek employment with a food service company, or, if a first degree relative works in such an establishment.
The PAME bureau for tourism/food service and the Union of Tourism – Food Service Businesses of Thessaloniki – Pieria - Chalkidiki that sign the denouncement stress that the tactics followed by Mikel turns employees into “corporate hostages,” even “after they are fired, attacking their “most basic labor and social rights,”
The unions note that an employee was already fired at a Thessaloniki store after simply discussing the issue, while also stressing that in the workplace at Mikel this incident “is not unique and will not remain unanswered.”
The chain, which is expanding like a wildfire, has long had a presence in central and northern Greece, but is now making tremendous inroads all over the country.
The deals forced on employees in this time of galloping unemployment are by no means limited to the food service sectors. Employers in all sector have found opportunity to eek as much as possible from workers for as little pay and as few benefits as possible. This can only get worse.
Related items
- Lamia: 63 cases of food poisoning from school lunches
- Higher global temperatures causing Caretta turtles to lay eggs sooner
- Mitsotakis: If North Macedonia does not respect the Prespa Agreement, their path to the EU will remain closed
- EU Commission sees Greece's growth rate at 2.2% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025
- Menidi: Forty year old woman stabbed by enstranged husband in the middle of the street - Police on manhunt
Latest from E.Tsiliopoulos
- Lamia: 63 cases of food poisoning from school lunches
- Higher global temperatures causing Caretta turtles to lay eggs sooner
- Mitsotakis: If North Macedonia does not respect the Prespa Agreement, their path to the EU will remain closed
- EU Commission sees Greece's growth rate at 2.2% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025
- Menidi: Forty year old woman stabbed by enstranged husband in the middle of the street - Police on manhunt