Before the Metapolitefsi, left-leaning trade unions and their members were persecuted and excluded from any and all discussions regarding financing and collective labor agreements. In the new political climate ushered in by the Metapolitefsi, suppression was no longer practiced. State intervention in the administration of trade unions, however, was achieved through indirect means and its purpose was usually to ensure the existence of a leadership that was friendly towards the governing party. In the period lasting from 1981 until 1989 that party was PASOK.

During the same period and up until 1990, trade unions gradually became more organized and decisive, and expanded their methods of representing male and female workers in various institutions. In a wider context, there was the prevalent hope that society could change through mass mobilizations. An article published in the daily newspaper To Vima in 1977, cited by Antonis Liakos, claimed that "strikes have become the most frequent mode of expression for social groups" (Newspaper To Vima, 12/01/1977).

The same feeling is prevalent in factory trade unions. The assemblies could now be held freely inside the factories and struggle committees and factory unions were organized by workers, who, through collective procedures, demanded and attained increases in salary and daily wages, as well as benefits, daycare centers, and other provisions related to social welfare.

It was during that time that the Left began winning over the workers […] After the fall of the Junta, there was a workers’ center that had a very large membership; it had no buildings, but it was always very active. It held rallies for Cyprus, for peace. I remember that there wasn’t a single day without some activity around these topics. The struggle at Chalyvourgiki began in the 1970s. Back then, there weren’t any career unionists. TITAN was the seed and the womb for those who, over the years and after the Metapolitefsi, manned the leading cadres of political and trade bodies, mostly of PASOK, but also the right-wing organizations.

IRAKLIS MPEKAS

In April 1981, the committee of the workers’ union of PYRKAL, which was at the time owned by the Bodosakis Foundation, declared a work stoppage as a form of protest against the anti-trade union law 64/74 and the Foundation’s anti-worker policies. The mobilizations continued up until June of the same year.

The legislations passed during this period essentially institutionalized the demands of all the social struggles that had preceded them.

By virtue of law 1264/82, PASOK abolished the previous anti-worker legislation and solidified the legal foundations for the establishment of the right to strike and participate in trade union activities,. The law's provisions excluded seamen unions, however, which would be subject to a special regime.

Trade unions are, to a great extent, a male-dominated field. As a consequence, the work performed by women, despite being a reality in Elefsina and elsewhere since the early days of industrialization, and its associated issues of pay equity and equal treatment between men and women wouldn't constitute a part of workers’ central demands before the 1980s. From then onwards, gender issues would be brought into public discourse and gradually translated into demands and rights.

According to Thanasis Betas, the Workers’ Center of Elefsina-West Attica (EKEDA in Greek) sent a letter to the workers’ union of PYRKAL at Elefsina, in which it cited the "women’s problems" at the factory and matched them with the respective demands, such as the sixteen-week maternity leave, a daily two-hour leave for breastfeeding and caring for infant children, improvement of working conditions, appropriate and specially outfitted–according to female demands–locker rooms, and decent and civilized treatment towards working women.

The trade union activities in Elefsina introduced the issues of health and safety of factory workers both locally and nationally. Through struggles that took place in Elefsina, the special pay for workers in difficult and hazardous occupations was ensured not only for those working at the local factories of Elefsina, but also for their counterparts in the rest of the country. In the context of this struggle, milk played a role that was both fundamental and symbolic. The workers fought for milk to be distributed as antidote to the chemical substances they inhaled and this demand formed the basis for the subsequent formalization of the right to concessions for difficult and hazardous work.

Elefsina presents a great deal of interest in this regard, not merely in terms of how the workers’ struggles in the area are connected to a demand which ultimately became universal, but also because health and safety emerged as a demand that expanded beyond the factories, encompassing the city and the residents of the wider region.

The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 had a significant impact on the industrial sector and led to a rise in the costs of energy and factory production, inflation, and unemployment rates. At the same time, the Greek economy had become part of the process of European integration and found itself exposed to the European competitive market. This forced a large number of Greek industrial firms to declare bankruptcy. Such firms were classified as "problematic" and passed into the ownership of the National Bank of Greece.

It was during this period that various mobilizations began at PYRKAL, which was classified as "problematic", as its factory in Elefsina was also taken over by workers who demanded its "socialization". This is a term which had become emblematic of PASOK already since 1974, when the party was still part of the government opposition. Despite its emblematic status, however, it was a term that remained quite vague in terms of its actual political proposal. According to Andreas Papandreou, socialization did not mean state ownership, but the abolishment of dependent labor and the participation of workers in the administrative boards through representatives.

Although the interpretation of the meaning of the term remained indefinite, it became a concrete reality for PYRKAL, which served as the subject of its initial application. PYRKAL was the very first experiment in social ownership in the industrial sector.

The gradual process of deindustrialization, regardless of whether it involved "problematic enterprises" during the 1980s or "heavily indebted enterprises" in the early 1990s, left its mark on the lives of the working people both in Greece as a whole and in Elefsina in particular. At the same time, Greece was also taking part in the process of European integration, which required a number of institutional and fiscal adjustments that also left their mark on the lives and struggles of workers.

Within this context, the emerging environment was very adverse for the job market and the trade unions. The high unemployment rates bore down on the world of work, especially on young people and immigrants, who were at the time undocumented and, essentially, without any labour or other rights. The trade union movement was also equally weakened and split into fragments.

The trade union organizations represented fewer and fewer numbers of workers and employees, because they were leaving out unemployed persons and undocumented immigrants.

Nevertheless, the changes brought by law 1876/1990 resulted in the autonomy of trade union struggles by terminating mandatory state arbitration, and negotiations would now move outside the sphere and control and interference by the state.

Over the course of the ensuing years, up to and including 2008, the sectors of industry and agriculture in Greece were shrunk, while the service sector rose to gigantic proportions, reaching up to 79% of total domestic production in 2008. The necessary infrastructures that were developed for the hosting of the 2004 Olympic Games managed to put Greece on a short-lived path of growth during the years from 1996 to 2004. Technical firms and job positions also proliferated during the same period. However, after 2004, this growth rate came to a sudden halt.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008 triggered the beginning of a domino-effect financial crisis that also spilled over into Greece. The period after 2008 was apocalyptic for the country. The economy was based on a large public and external debt, putting Greece on the radar of international credit rating agencies. In 2010, the government secured a loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to cover the basic needs of its economy.

The price for borrowing money was an initial memorandum of understanding, followed by other subsequent memorandums, accompanied by a committee that was appointed to oversee the implementation of the memorandum’s commitments. The representatives of lenders now played a decisive role in Greece’s fiscal life. The so-called “Greek crisis” was borne by wage-earners, pensioners, workers, and private-sector employees. The discrediting of trade union executives also became more visible during that period.