In the 20th century, the mining company “Société des
mines Seriphos-Spiliazeza exploited the iron ore mines of Serifos. In the
summer of 1916, in response to inhumane working conditions, the 460 miners
formed a union and organized a strike. Their leader was K Speras, a Serifos native, who had experience with
labor struggles, on the Greek mainland. In response to the strike, Grohman, the
director of the mines, asked help from the Greek authorities, who dispatch a
30-man gendarmerie detachment. After
detaining Speras and the strike committee, the gendarmerie lieutenant ordered
his men to fire on the workers, who had gathered at the ore loading dock at
Megalo Livadi and did permit the
loading of a cargo ship.
In the morning of August 21 after the
gendarmes fired at the strikers they in turn reacted with stoning them. Four
workers died and tenths were injured. The lieutenant and two of his men were stoned
to death and their bodies were thrown into the sea. And there was the famous French flag incident: “Suddenly I
heard cheers and in the midst of the crowd I saw a woman holding the French
flag. I didn’t lose time and grabbed the flag and shouted: In the name of the
French Democracy, put your weapons down!!” Speras writes in his
book.
On August 26 the French warship «Henri Quatre» arrives at the
island. Its crew honored the French flag and the captain declared support to
the requests of the miners. In early September, the Greek warship “Avlis” with 250
soldiers aboard was sent from the island of Syros. The union leaders and some
of the workers were arrested and imprisoned in Syros. Thus the short summer of
anarchy ends in Serifos but this strike led the way to the establishment of the
8-hour workday in the rest of Greece.
The
capital of the island -Hora- is perched on a high hill and is defended by its
Venetian fortifications. As the weather
forecast was predicting strong northerly winds we left the island of the
Cyclops that is also associated with two more great heroes of Greek Mythology,
Odysseus and Perseus, hoping that we will return again to get to know it
better.
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