Women on the Left – Konstantina Kuneva

Konstantina Kuneva. Photo by Grreporter.info

From International Socialist Group

As part of the 'Women on the Left' series, Chris Walsh looks at the Bulgarian-born founding member of the Greek precarious worker's union PEKOP, Konstantina Kuneva, who was subjected to horrific reactionary violence as a result of her endeavours in the service of women, migrants and the working class.

In December 2008, Greece was alive with the riots sparked by the state murder of 15 year old school boy Andreas Grigoropoulos in Athens. The world watched as predominantly young demonstrations clashed with police night after night for weeks on end, enraged by the killing of a child and the shameful response of political society, the media and the church. On the 23rd of December that year, another pivotal incident occurred, although this one is not so well-known beyond Greek shores. It was on this day that a leading woman trade unionist, Konstantina Kuneva, was viciously attacked and disfigured whilst leaving her workplace. It is suspected that the attack was carried out at the behest of her employer.

This incident would reinvigorate the popular resistance to state repression and the solidarity movement born from it was able to articulate a new, broad politics which dealt with various dynamics of oppression and exploitation.

Konstantina Kuneva first travelled to Greece from Bulgaria on a short-term visa in 2001. An educated woman, she read History at the University of Sofia. She emigrated to Greece with her young son in order that he could have an operation that he could not obtain in their native Bulgaria. Although somewhat knowledgeable on labour legislation and labour history in her homeland, she never intended be a union activist in Greece.

On arrival in Greece...

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