GREECE: Tens of thousands of Greeks take to the streets of Athens during a nationwide strike against wage cuts and high taxes

Record ID: 341086

  • Title: GREECE: Tens of thousands of Greeks take to the streets of Athens during a nationwide strike against wage cuts and high taxes
  • Date: 20th February 2013
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (FEBRUARY 20, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UNION MEMBERS IN STREET, HOLDING SIGNS, WITH ATHENS ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM BEHIND BANNER READING : "We want money for our needs, not for the banks" (SOUNDBITE) (Greek) CIVIL SERVANT WHO WORKS FOR THE MUNICIPALITY, SPIROS FILIOTIS, SAYING: "As long as we fight, there is still hope for the future. This is a message for
  • Embargoed: 7th March 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA63THD519JKHQTY2FST4JUI0X5
  • Story Text: Tens of thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday (February 20) during a nationwide strike against wage cuts and high taxes that kept ferries stuck in ports, schools shut and hospitals with only emergency staff.
    Beating drums and chanting "Robbers, robbers!" more than 60,000 people marched to parliament in the biggest anti-austerity protest so far this year.
    The two biggest labour unions brought much of crisis-hit Greece to a standstill during the 24-hour protest against policies which they say deepen the hardship of people struggling through the country's worst peacetime downturn.
    Representing 2.5 million workers, the unions have gone on strike repeatedly since a debt crisis erupted in late 2009, testing the government's will to impose the painful conditions of an international bailout in the face of growing public anger.
    Civil servant Spiros Filiotis took part in the march to demonstrate for urgent change.
    "As long as we fight, there is still hope for the future. This is a message for change to these policies. It is a message we hope to pass to everyone, because if we don't resist, there is no future," Filiotis said.
    Greece's main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, from the SYRIZA party walked with striking workers and lashed out at the German government for playing a role in Greece's austerity crisis.
    "This catastrophe must end now. This mistake must be corrected immediately, not after the German elections take place and it suits Ms. Merkel, when it will be too late. A solution to this catastrophe cannot exist that includes the bailout agreement - but only one with democracy, independence and growth," Tsipras said, referring to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the upcoming elections in her country.
    The SYRIZA Party is running neck and neck in the polls with the governing coalition of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
    SYRIZA has been opposed to the austerity measures from the onset, and has often vowed to overturn the policies of the program if Tsipras is elected.
    Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's eight-month-old coalition government has been eager to show it will implement reforms it promised the European Union and International Monetary Fund, which have bailed Athens out twice with over 200 billion euros.
    It has taken a tough line on striking workers, invoking emergency laws twice this year to order seamen and subway workers back to their jobs after week-long walkouts that paralysed public transport in Athens and led to food shortages on islands.
    Since the government implemented the austerity program in 2010 to clean up the indebted economy, Greece has been riddled with strikes and protests that have often ended in violence, sometimes deadly.
    Six years of recession and three of austerity have tripled the rate of unemployment to 27 percent. More than 60 percent of young workers are jobless.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register