Good news for Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras swinging the axe on public workers: some 60% of Greeks agree that the bloated public sector has to be cut, just as the government is readying plans for involuntary transfers and firings that could see 40,000 of them shed in the next two years.
The finding came in a poll for To Vima by Kapa Research, which also showed that Samaras’ New Democracy Conservatives hold an indistinguishable 0.5 percent lead over the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party which is opposed to all layoffs and all budget cuts although it hasn’t said where Greece, which is broke, would get the money to keep operating with international aid.
Samaras is considered to be a more appropriate leader, with 44.6% support compared to SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras who is far behind with only 31.4%, and 41.6% of Greeks believe the current New Democracy-PASOK Socialist coalition government which is cutting their pay, raising their taxes and slashing their pensions is better suited to run the country than anything SYRIZA could put together.
New Democracy and PASOK have been blamed for creating the crushing economic crisis by hiring hundreds of thousands of needless workers for generations in return for votes and now are charged with getting rid of the people they hired. First to go will be those in the lower-paid sectors such as school crossing guards, janitors, municipal police and school teachers, while Parliament workers and high-paid manager and consultants have been exempted.
With austerity measures creating a record 26.8 percent unemployment rate – some 64 percent for those under 25 – and putting 1.3 million people out of work in the private sector there was little sympathy for the coming firing of public workers, with 64.5 percent of Greeks favoring an elimination to their job guarantees and are happy to see many of them go.
What was the real surprise, however, is that more than half of SYRIZA voters favor public worker firings while Tsipras said he wouldn’t fire a single public worker, including those who don’t show up for work, are insubordinate, have forged their credentials and committed felonies, including murder.
Moreover, 60.6% agree with public employees’ layoffs while 64.5% are in favor of lifting the permanency of civil servants. What seems to be remarkable according to the survey results, is that more than half the SYRIZA voters say yes to public sector’s redundancies. And 62.5 percent want Greece to stay in the Eurozone, whatever it takes, including austerity which most of them oppose at the same time, the continuing contradiction of Greek polling.
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