GREECE: Civil servants hold 24-hour strike to protest austerity measures

Record ID: 339367

  • Title: GREECE: Civil servants hold 24-hour strike to protest austerity measures
  • Date: 11th February 2010
  • Summary: PIRAEUS, GREECE (FEBRUARY 10, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BOATS TIED AT PORT
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA4F93CGZAIBNW7IBHIX5K58W9T
  • Story Text: The Greek civil servants' union ADEDY began a 24-hour nationwide strike on Wednesday (February 10) to protest against the government's austerity measures.
    Strikes grounded flights and halted government services. Athens International Airport was empty as all flights were cancelled. Just a few straggling tourists, not aware of the strike or not prepared to pay for hotel accomodation, were at the airport.
    "I have to book myself another flight to Canada, and I have to spend 36 hours here, so that's the strike, really Greek! So, new bed for yesterday and today." said Canadian tourist Gabriella Sombello, pointing to the airport lounge chair.
    "I am very upset, I am not a young woman, since they knew the flight was cancelled they could have told me about it, and I would have stayed where I was, " a German tourist Penelope Stoltsenburg said.
    Passenger ferries at Greece's main commercial port of Piraeus were were not running and the city trains also came to halt.
    The civil servants strike by the ADEDY union, which represents some 500,000 public servants, included air traffic controllers, port workers, health workers, teachers and employees in public offices.
    The union is protesting against wage and hiring freezes and the cutting of supplemental wage allowances in the public sector as outlined in the government economic program to clean up the country's finances.
    It is also opposed to raising of the retirement age and tax reforms announced on Tuesday (February 9).
    Some teachers also did not show up at classes for public schools while public hospitals were operating on emergency staff.
    The strike action is seen as a test for the government on whether it be able to push forward with the measures, but analysts say the government has enough public support to weather the ADEDY strike and another by the private sector union at the end of the month.
    "We have to implement the austerity measures, or the country will not be able to get out of this crisis. We have to pay for the mistakes of the past," Katerina, an employee of a privately owned busiess said.
    "I think it's a revolutionary exercise by the left, it doesn't help anything, it shows that they (strikers) are living in another world," said Christos, a civil servant who refused to support the strike.
    According to two seperate opinion polls conducted by Kapa Reasearch and Metron Analysis for Greek media earlier this month, 64 percent believe the government's handling of the economy is in the right direction, while 64 percent in one poll and 69 percent in the other believe the economic measures are necessary.
    The polls also showed 58 percent are ready or probably ready to make sacrifices for the economy, 71 percent believe the civil servant worforce could be reduced, and 72 percent did not approve of strikes similar to the one conducted by tax officials last week.
    The latest poll measuring approval ratings showed the governing party at 40 percent against 29 for the opposition, and the approval rating for Prime Minister George Papandreou at 62 percent.
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