GREECE: Greek labor unions call 48-hour strike over government austerity

Record ID: 340037

  • Title: GREECE: Greek labor unions call 48-hour strike over government austerity
  • Date: 29th June 2011
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (JUNE 28, 2011) (REUTERS) SYNDAGMA SQUARE IN CENTRAL ATHENS, PROTESTERS CAMPED VARIOUS OF PROTEST BANNERS VARIOUS OF BANNER HANGING IN FRONT OF PARLIAMENT BUILDING READING IN GREEK "DEMOCRACY NOW" PEOPLE STANDING IN ROAD WITH GREEK FLAG (SOUNDBITE) (Greek) GREEK CITIZEN ANASTASIOS TSOCHAS, 62, SAYING: "They are exhaustive measures that will not even pr
  • Embargoed: 14th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece, Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAB6YOE16SFWWK7O5EHFONSZQ4C
  • Story Text: Greece's main labour unions launched a 48-hour strike on Tuesday (June 28) in resistance to the government's austerity programme.
    Greek citizen Anastasios Tsochas agreed that the austerity measures should not be implemented.
    "They are exhaustive measures that will not even prove to be effective. If they were effective, then maybe we would show some patience but we don't believe they will be successful."
    Flights, mainly domestic, were canceled or rescheduled, buses, trains and other public transport halted. Passenger ferries canceled routes and postal and other public services as well as hospitals were affected, while shopowners also planned to shut down. The Athens subway was the only mode of public transport operating following a decision taken by its employee union late yesterday to keep running to enable people to travel to the planned protests.
    Police were also preparing to handle major demonstrations in Athens' Syndagma Square, outside parliament, which has become the focus of opposition to the austerity measures.
    ADEDY, the public sector union representing half a million civil servants and its private sector equivalent GSEE, which represents 2 million workers, have called the two-day stoppage to coincide with a vote in parliament which the government must win to avert the threat of immediate default.
    The Greek parliament is to vote on bills implementing the austerity package on Wednesday and Thursday, which includes privatisations, tax rises and spending cuts. Euro zone finance ministers have said Greece must pass the laws to obtain its next 12 billion euro tranche of bailout loans, needed to make wage payments.
    Public disgruntlement over austerity -- including tax rises and cuts in benefits and wages -- has erupted into strikes and protests, some of them violent. Unemployment is rising. In a poll last month, 80 percent of people said they refused to make any more sacrifices to get more EU/IMF aid. Private sector workers blame the bloated public sector, civil servants blame tax cheats and many Greeks blame corrupt politicians for the country's problems.
    The 110-billion-euro bailout Greece accepted last year from the European Union and International Monetary Fund has proved insufficient and a second package worth 120 billion euros is now under discussion.
    Greeks have lost patience with an ever-deepening austerity drive that has slashed public sector wages by a fifth and pensions by a tenth.
    Greece went into recession in 2009 after 15 years of growth and its budget deficit hit 15.4 percent of GDP after a series of revisions by the government which revealed the country's economy was in far worse shape than it had previously admitted. Chronic problems include rampant tax evasion -- the labour minister has estimated a quarter of the economy pays nothing.
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