“Open the salons, no to black labour and trafficking” were some of the demands made at a nationwide peaceful protest of hairdressers last week.
Although hairdressing is an industry that is very easily controlled, who comes in, who goes out and how many people are in a room… it is still closed. They open, they close, they open again, they close again… and all this results in indignant, tired employees and owners of hairdressing salons and barbershops, because the former are unemployed with minimal benefits, if they are entitled to them, and the latter only incur maintenance costs, effectively losing their clientele.
Numerous hairdressing salons, in all regions of Greece, took their chairs out of their shops in protest of the lockdown measures and the general state of the country.
“Our aim was completely peaceful and to unite hairdressers from all over Greece. In this nice way we want to show the government our problems and our complaints about the whole situation we are living in” said the coordinator of this action and owner of a hairdresser’s in Mykonos, Konstantinos Kontizas, adding that “the world is on pins and needles. There are colleagues within the groups here on the internet who are ready to take to the streets.”
In the hairdressing salons, even before the coronavirus, the working process allows with ease, to know how many people are present in the place, with all their details, since everything is done only by appointment. “All this time we have been following the measures and we have made our shops like a surgery, so that the customer can enter and not only feel but also be safe,” said Mr. Kontizas pleading with the officials to open the salons since that is not really the problem.
The same view was expressed by Ms. Avramidou Vasiliki, owner of a hairdresser in Aigaleo, Attica, admitting that she is having a hard time with the open, close that prevails, thus losing her clientele. “Yes, I understand that the cases are increasing rapidly, but we keep our distance and we don’t put too many people in our salons,” he said, commenting on the crowds he encountered a few days ago when he went to a private clinic to do some tests.
No allowance if you were hired after 4 November
Several hairdressers, who do not have their own salons and were unlucky enough to be hired after 4 November, unfortunately do not even get an allowance now that they are not even working, so they literally have nothing to eat. Although this has been pointed out in publications and videos by several hairdressers, it is a general and important problem that arises with the new measures!
Key working day on Saturday
Some areas of Greece are a bit “luckier” and the hairdressers only close on Saturdays. On the one hand this is positive, but on the other hand, according to what Mrs. Maria-Kurii Bosa, owner of a hairdressing salon in Panorama in Thessaloniki, creates a real problem since Saturday is a day of key importance and a lot of customers for this industry. But this does not stop some hairdressers from moving illegally from house to house to make a living, increasing the problem of the black market.
No to undeclared work and trafficking
Even nowadays, where everything is closed, there are loopholes where anyone can break the law. “The government should take care of the fight against illegal work and trafficking, to make a campaign informing people about what causes trafficking in all sectors, not only in ours. Checks and penalties should be tightened on people who go to homes and provide services because among other evils caused by this, the hawker can carry the virus from home to home, unlike hairdressers who follow certain measures,” he said. Tzanis Ioannis, owner of a hairdresser’s shop in Chalkida, stressing that with this action of the hawker, the state loses money from receipts, from contributions, companies lose money from orders, the PPC, the OTE, jobs are lost, creating unemployment”. “It is unacceptable to operate like an accordion opener and closer, because this increases the problem of the black market and the underground economy.
We are asking to be more open of course while respecting the already tight measures, to reduce VAT to a sustainable rate of 10% with strict controls and to make it easier for prosecutors to be present in potential “black” businesses,” he said. Konstantinos Tsiarvoulas owner of a hairdresser’s shop in Sikies in Thessaloniki.
“Let us work… we feel like criminals”
The issue of the hard lockdown is not only financial but also psychological, the stress is great. People are indignant because they just want to work and they can’t, because they don’t know when they will be practically open, when they will be closed, what new legislation and regulations will have to be complied with at any given time and what will happen with this whole situation where the profits are actually much less than the costs. According to Ms. Evangelia Dangalou hairdresser owner in Larissa, the stress of both her own, her colleagues and her customers is enormous. “We cannot feel that we are stealing or have committed a crime, we cannot feel guilty without having committed a crime, we cannot feel imprisoned in our own shops. Feel anxiety lest any person escapes us and we do not write it in the book covid, which only we keep as if the world does not go and only by us will be traced ” said Mrs. Dangalou, recalling that “we did not get any compensation for the great loss we suffered with the opened closed , but only a very small loan that after probably give you double again. You make us feel like idiots”. Finally, he commented on the problem with VAT, asking the following questions to those in charge, “do you understand any of this? Can you feel our problem and let us work while respecting the security measures anyway?”
The hairdressers erupted with their peaceful energy and joined their voices, shouting with video photos and comments…. “Let us finally get to work. We are not a hotbed of diaspora”!!!!!
Here are photographs of some of the hairdressers who took part in this action, but did not speak in our text.
