Greek unions stage national strike

By Kerin Hope in Athens

Greek trade unions on Thursday staged a national strike in protest against a public sector pay freeze and rising job losses in the private sector.

The one-day stoppage disrupted public services, especially schools and transport, with ferry sailings to the Aegean islands curtailed on the second day of the tourist season.

Athens airport shut down for three hours in the middle of the day, bringing cancellations of domestic flights and long delays for international travellers.

Several thousand workers marched to parliament in separate protests organised by ADEDY and GSEE and ADEDY, the umbrella unions for public and private sector employees respectively.

Unions were taken by surprise when the government last month announced a pay freeze for higher-paid civil servants as well as a one-off tax for high income earners, in an attempt to keep control of the budget deficit.

A European Court ruling last week that Greek female civil servants can no longer take early retirement at 50, bringing Greece in line with its EU partners, added to growing popular anger.

Yannos Papathanassiou, finance minister, insists Greece can avoid recession although he has ruled out a stimulus package because of the high cost of financing a public debt equal to 94 per cent of gross domestic product.

Mr Papathanassiou told an FT conference on Thursday that in spite of the downturn,”We are confident the economy will by expand by more than 1 per cent this year.”

But a GSEE official said on Thursday more than 15,000 jobs have been lost in the past four months in manufacturing and services in Athens and Thessaloniki, the country’s second city.

“Small and medium-sized businesses are most at risk of closing because bank financing is drying up in spite of the government’s promises to maintain liquidity,” the official said.

The majority of Greek companies are family-owned with fewer than 50 workers. They have limited resources to cope with a downturn.

The previous national strike was staged less than three months ago, amid riots triggered by the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old schoolboy by police.

A strong police presence on Thursday in central Athens underlined continuing social tensions.

Extremist groups have staged a series of petrol bomb attacks against banks, car dealerships and politicians’ offices in a campaign to undermine the centre-right government of Costas Karamanlis, the prime minister, which has only a one-seat majority in parliament.