Greek university labor leaders face charges after supporting students

Members of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) Faculty Union are facing legal charges after supporting student demands for dignified dormitory housing. AUTh’s president, Elias Kondilis, and board members Dimitris Raptakis and Sotiris Sotiropoulos are facing charges for alleged disruption of public service and unlawful violence.

The crackdown on the academics has sparked a massive wave of solidarity within the sector, raising alarms over the case’s links to ongoing trends of commercialization in higher education imposed through repression.

“The charges are severe and unprecedented for academics and university unionists,” Kondilis told BreakThrough News, explaining that they are charged for alleged disruption of public service and unlawful violence under a new disciplinary framework introduced in summer 2025. Under this new regulation, Kondilis adds, “the presence of academics in student demonstrations, or even their verbal support of any student collective action that could be perceived by university authorities as ‘disruptive,’ is considered a criminal act.”

While the charges could easily collapse in court, he warns that “combined with the disciplinary measures that they will trigger within the university, [they] aim to exhaust faculty unionists in legal disputes, spread fear among faculty members, and set new limits on academic freedom and rights within university campuses.”

Students protest “bleak” dorm conditions

The charges were raised following a protest organized by the Dormitory Students Union in response to university authorities’ attempts to introduce stricter rules for using the dorms and shifting maintenance costs onto the students. In early April, the university administration instructed dorm students to sign a contract that would allow unannounced inspections of rooms – even while students were not present – and limited family and friends visits to public areas.

The contract also declared that “the faculties, equipment, and furnishings [of the assigned room] are currently in excellent condition and working order.” According to both students and university staff, this is far from true. Instead, they describe the situation as “bleak,” with widespread mold, crumbling plaster, unkept electric installations, and non-functional kitchens and laundry rooms. Similar reports come from other universities, including in Athens, where students have been targeted for raising grievances about dorm conditions.

The overall situation is particularly concerning considering that this form of student housing is still under public control and free of charge, and maintenance is the responsibility of relevant public institutions. Dorm students are also among the most financially vulnerable on campus, Kondilis points out. “These students come from the most deprived families in the country, which struggle to support their children during their studies in higher education,” he emphasizes.

“The Dormitory Student Union organized a demonstration, asking for a meeting with the rectorate authorities to negotiate the terms and conditions of their stay in these public facilities. Their symbolic demonstration was presented by the Greek media and the government as a ‘violent attempt to overturn necessary rules and restrictions,'” Kondilis adds. “The academics who attended the student demonstration – as they ought to do as teachers and unionists – expressing their support to the rightful demands of their students, were portrayed as students’ ‘instigators,’ and eventually charged with severe legal offenses.”

New regulations to pave way for public-private partnerships in renovation

Dorm conditions and attempts to shift maintenance costs onto students cannot be separated from ongoing privatization trends in higher education. “The new, strict regulatory framework of the AUTh dormitories is directly related to the government plan to renovate these facilities through public-private partnerships and use them for commercial purposes in the future,” Kondilis points out.

This, in turn, appears to be only a segment of a wider commercialization attempt in the sector – despite existing constitutional provisions barring private entities from engaging in higher education. “However, this constitutional ban has effectively been bypassed, as four private universities now operate in Greece as branches of foreign European institutions,” Kondilis explains. “The government is currently attempting to legitimize this bypass through constitutional reform.”

Even now, when private involvement in higher education is supposed to be kept at bay, it already claims significant space in the sector: most postgraduate programs charge student fees, university facilities are used for commercial purposes, support services are outsourced, and private programs introduced to attract international students. “Public universities in Greece, as elsewhere in Europe, are gradually transforming themselves into fully autonomous, self-funded public entities – public entities that think and operate like the private sector and generate their own income,” Kondilis says.

“Similarly, the limitation of trade union rights and academic liberties in public universities is a prerequisite for their unimpeded exposure to market forces and competition. This authoritarian trend is further exacerbated by the exposure of public universities to educational defense programs and their direct involvement in military or dual-use research. The privatization and militarization of higher education are the driving forces behind the erosion of democratic, academic, and trade union rights in public universities across Europe.”

Read more: “Militarization of rules and minds” in Europe threatens workers and welfare

Attacks on trade unionists in Thessaloniki have sparked a massive wave of solidarity, with over 16 faculty unions from 13 universities in Greece condemning the attempted prosecutions, and spurred reactions from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). International organizations have also written in support of the three academics, with the International Association of Health Policy Europe (IAHPE) and the People’s Health Movement (PHM) being among them.

Kondilis expects ongoing attempts to privatize higher education will similarly be met with resistance from within the sector. “The state’s attempt to prosecute unionists from one of Greece’s most active and outspoken faculty unions is widely perceived by the academic community – sparking a massive wave of solidarity – as a clear signal of zero tolerance toward critical voices that challenge government plans, including the forthcoming constitutional reform and the liberalization of the higher education market.”