Although hundreds of previous strikes and protests against austerity measures the last 3 1/2 years have all failed, Greek civil servants took to the streets on Sept. 25 for the second day of their 48-hour general strike which is being ignored by the government.
Tax services employees, Greek teachers and Ministry of Culture staff joined the work stoppage called by the labor union ADEDY for public workers and GSEE for private workers, who have suffered the most with a record 27.9 percent unemployment rate and 1.4 million people out of work.
The government now is moving to transfer, suspend or fire as many as 40,000 public workers over the next two years to add to the list, as demanded by the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) that is putting up $325 billion in two bailouts on condition of pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions.
The lender also insisted on a reduced public workforce that has been bloated for decades by alternating administrations of New Democracy Conservatives and PASOK Socialists hiring hundreds of thousands of needless workers in return for votes.
Employees at universities and insurance funds are continuing with 48-hour rolling strikes, while health centers, port navigation, welfare and ambulance services will operate with a bare minimum security staff.
Greek Secondary school teachers are also continuing with their strike deep into a second week and scheduled a rally in downtown Athens in the early afternoon while GSEE and ADEDY scheduled a late afternoon demonstration.
ADEDY’s executive committee will convene on Sept. 26 to evaluate any developments and decide what to do next although protests have been fruitless and limited to 48 hours at the most. GSEE’s officials won’t meet until the end of the month to plan their next course of action.
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