While Members of Parliament in Greece are being assailed by critics as being greedy and largely exempting themselves from austerity measures they have voted on workers, pensioners and the poor, a lawmaker from the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA)is giving his salary – from a second job he holds – to a group that helps children with cancer.
Yiannis Stathas said he was turning over his salary from work at an aluminum company to Floga, an organization of parents whose children have cancer and who are doing without government assistance. They did not say how much it was. As an MP, Stathas also receives a monthly stipend, not including additional benefits, of about $9,000 a month.
Stathas, as President of the labor union of Livadeia prefecture, whose group brought a suit against Greece’s deal with international lenders who ordered pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions, also refused to accept a free car given to lawmakers, and assigned his two police bodyguards to a police station in Aliartos, which is short-handed.
The board of Floga accepted his offer and in a letter signed by its President, Maria Trifonidi and General Secretary Christina Baka, praised him and wrote: “Thank you for coming our way and giving us the image of a chosen service provider who honors his mission and to whom we can address to solve our problems and who is worth honoring and respecting.”
They added: “It shows there are still values in places where we believed they had faded away … your offer is laudable and shows the sensitivity you feel toward fellow human beings.” The organization said the government had failed the children with cancer and done little to help. “There are prejudices that marginalize our children,” it added.
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