Calamos Supports Greece
GreekReporter.comGreeceA Week of Strikes Throughout Greece

A Week of Strikes Throughout Greece

apergia_Greece
After months of relative calm, and just as he said Greece was beginning to show signs of turning the corner toward recovery next year, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras faces perhaps the biggest challenge to his new fragile coalition this week with an array of protests and strikes against more austerity measures that could lead to the firing of 27,500 workers.

The week began with multiple demonstrations in the field of Local Government and Health, that will compose the scene of the strike bulletin against the public sector mobility scheme, and with the country’s mayors shutting down municipal services from July 15-17, and tangential problems, such as whether rubbish will be picked up.

The President of POE-OTA (federation of workers of all specializations in the Municipalities and local communities of Greece) Themis Blasopoulos, responding to the decision of the government to deposit the draft opening the pathway for the dismissals in the public sector, has already threatened the central authority with closure of the municipalities and cessation of garbage pickup in neighborhoods.
A July 16 general strike will coincide with the Parliament voting on a multi-bill with more than 100 articles, primarily among them a plan to put 12,500 workers in an involuntary transfer scheme with the likelihood of being fired if another position can’t be found for them. Another 15,000 workers are set to go next year from the hugely bloated public sector.
POE-OTA called for a mass gathering on July 15 in Syntagma Square, with a concert scheduled for the evening as a further protest against austerity measures. The general strike was called by the country’s two largest labor unions, ADEDY for the public workers and GSEE for the private sector which has been the hardest hit by the economic crisis, with more than 1.3 million people out of work.
A decision on waste collection was also up in the air as there are concerns how piled-up rubbish will affect the country’s image just as it seems ready for a record tourist season of 17 million visitors after a poor 2012.
KEDE proposed a gathering and a march to the Parliament on July 16 as well with an official warning if the multi-bill isn’t withdrawn that a “serious and effective mobility in all the range of the public administration” will be considered, including shutting down town and city halls and even mass resignations of mayors.
Doctors and the workers in public hospitals, the ambulance service and the welfare structures will also be on strike on July 16 for 24 hours, and then again on July 24 to stand next to their colleagues and partners, who are threatened with dismissal. The PanHellenic Federation of Employees in Public Hospitals (POEDIN) and the Federation of Hospital Doctors’ Unions (OENGE) said that the protest may be escalated within the first ten days of September.
The Attica Dental Association expressed opposition to the multi-bill, which provides the dismissal of 100 dentists employed in the education sector, asking for the evaluation of the role of dentists and the withdrawal of their dismissals, which lead them to “social and economic extermination.”
Also joining in on July 16 is the PanHellenic Federation of Railway Workers and its member unions, who are also upset that the country’s railway system has been on the block to be sold off and privatized.

See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!



Related Posts