GREECE: Services shut down in Athens for general strike against government austerity

Record ID: 339024

  • Title: GREECE: Services shut down in Athens for general strike against government austerity
  • Date: 24th February 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF CLOSED PHARMACY SEEN WITH SHUTTERS PULLED DOWN CLOSE-UP OF PHARMACY SHUTTER AND SMALL STOP SIGN STICKER AFFIXED TO GLASS DOOR
  • Embargoed: 11th March 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece, Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9UA2WIQG5XT9QCT711PRIGIY7
  • Story Text: Transport and public services were disrupted across Greece on Wednesday (February 23) as thousands of workers walked off the job in the first nationwide strike this year against austerity measures.
    Hospitals are operating on skeleton staff for 24 hours, some public schools have closed and public transport has been interrupted as doctors, lawyers, transport service employees and civil servants participate in the strike.
    Air traffic controllers will stop work for four hours, cancelling dozens of flights, while ships will remain docked at ports throughout the day as ship crews also join in the action.
    Shopowners kept their shutters down in protest over the loss of business as measures have affected consumer spending.
    The strike, organized by Greece's main public ADEDY union and private GSEE union, will culminate in a march to parliament to protest against the belt-tightening, which is aimed at helping the country exit a huge debt crisis.
    The Socialist government cut salaries and pensions and increased taxes last year despite repeated strikes, in return for a 110 billion euro bailout by the EU and the IMF that saved Greece from bankruptcy.
    More cost cutting is expected this year as the country's international lenders, the IMF and EU, this month approved the next installment of a 110 billion euro rescue package to stave off default.
    Unemployment jumped to a new, seven-year record high of 13.9 percent in November amid an economy that contracted by 4.5 percent in 2010, the second straight year of a deep recession.
    "We must all take part. I do not agree with the tactic of occupying the square but we must demonstrate. The average Greek has been exhausted by the measures," said one striking lawyer, Petros Panoutsos
    "The people are very confused by all these things that are happening. They feel that their standard of living and their wages are being threatened. I think it is just that there are protests but the way that things are now, I don't think there is a lot of room for the government to maneuver," said a doctor, also on strike, Dimitris Tsoukas But analysts say the strikes are unlikely to make the government change course, which until now has been pushing through the reforms. The latest polls show the governing socialist party still leading the opposition conservative party, but the gap has narrowed to between three and five percentage points.
    It is the first nationwide strike since December 15, but individual labour groups have held their own intermittent strikes on a weekly basis.
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