A protest by Greek city and town officials who are refusing to compile a list of workers to be laid off and eventually fired has become more intense, as the Ministry of Administrative Reform keeps pressing for the names and has threatened to use its own methods to identify who will be let go.
The coming layoffs were required by Greece’s international lenders in return for bailout loans, but with the axe falling during the holiday season the bitterness is growing on the side of workers who don’t know who’s going and who’s staying.
Services across the country were suspended on Dec. 13 on the order of the Greek federation of local government employees Poe-Ota, so that a union meeting could be held to “re-examine and organize a more forceful reaction of the sector,” labor officials said in a statement.
A protest in Karaiskakis Square in Athens was also held followed by march to the ministry building, what has become a regular routine during demonstrations against austerity measures.
“With initiatives bringing to mind Mafia-style actions and blackmail, the Ministry of Administrative Reform has cancelled the names of workers with open-ended contracts in the public sector and local governments from its list of employees,” the statement added. “People are being fired single-handedly from their jobs as part of a shameful and unconstitutional law.”
The strike was part of the union’s response to a ministerial measure under which local administration managers had been ordered to send within 24 hours a list of employees who could be placed in redundancy payment before being fired. The ministry had announced it would temporarily suspend all administration workers with open-ended contracts if managers failed to provide the list, and did so after the list was not drafted.
(Source: ANSA)
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