Tens of thousands of Greeks have abandoned their workplaces on Tuesday and rallied in front of parliament in the capital Athens against government plans to satisfy foreign lenders by firing public sector employees.
It is the third and the largest general strike the crisis-hit
country has experienced since the start of the year.
The 24-hour walkout came a day before the Greek MPs vote on a
series of unpopular reforms, which the European Union and
International Monetary Fund say are obligatory if Greece want
more financial aid.
“The public sector still composes a major part of the Greek
economy. These jobs are protected by the constitution since the
end of the 19th century,” RT’s correspondent, Egor Piskunov,
reports from Athens.
Over 30,000 demonstrators, including municipal police and
teachers targeted in the lay-off scheme, gathered in central
Syntagma Square.
The protesters were beating drums, blowing whistles and chanting:
“No more sacrifices.”
They also displayed banners, reading "Fire the troika" in
reference to the trio of European Commission, European Central
Bank and IMF propping up Greece with over €200 billion in aid.
"It feels like Greece is dead and now the vultures are
fighting over its corpse," Eleni Fotopoulou, a retired
teacher and mother of two, told Reuters. "I'm not angry
anymore, I am disgusted. We have to fight back."
Domestic flights were disrupted after civil aviation unions
staged a four-hour work stoppage as part of the strike.
The main tourist attraction of the Greek capital – the Acropolis
– closed early. City transport was also affected by the walkout,
with bus and trolley bus drivers holding work stoppages in the
morning and in the evening.
Tax offices and municipal services were shut, with railway
traffic also stalled. Garbage collectors, bank employees and
journalists were among other groups, who joined the protest.
The EU must find new ways to tackle the financial crisis as
austerity measures aren’t working, Vasilios Xenakis from ADEDY
trade union, which organized the strike together with GSEE union,
told RT.
“We’re three years on the street, trying to explain to
everybody, to the government and to the lenders also that it’s
not an effective policy,” he said. “Let me just say, that
the public debt was €281 billion three years ago and – they
promised that it should be a recovery – but instead of that,
after the haircut, we now owe €321 billion… At the same time,
they said that everything in the market should be OK. But as we
can see the market is still frozen. There’s no growth. Instead of
this, we have unemployment in the private sector, unemployment in
the public sector, for the first time. What’s needed is a new
policy – a new policy not only in Greece, a new policy in the EU
and Eurozone.”
Greece's lenders, who have bailed the country twice with €240
billion worth of aid since it slid into a debt crisis in late
2009, are unhappy with how their money is being used.
The Greek government has so far been unable to present any
significant progress in reforming its 600,000 strong public
sector, which is widely criticized for being inefficient and
corrupt.
After missing several deadlines, Athens have put together a list
of 12,500 state workers slated for a ‘mobility pool,’ in which
they are given eight months to find work in another department or
get fired.
“The Troika is demanding from the government to cut up to
25,000 jobs, which have to be reduced before the end of this
year,” RT’s Egor Piskunov said.
The plans sparked outrage across the country where unemployment
currently stands at an all-time high of 27 per cent.
More protests are expected in Greece on Thursday as German
Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, is expected to arrive in
Athens for talks.
Many Greeks blame Germany, which is the leading sponsor of
economic austerity in the EU, for their economic troubles,
labeling Chancellor Angela Merkel as a modern day Nazi.