GREEK CIVIL servants stopped work for 24 hours yesterday, pushing ahead with protests against EU/IMF prescribed austerity measures despite a waning turnout.
Tax offices, public schools and some public services shut down, while public hospitals worked with emergency staff. Flights to and from Greek airports were to be grounded for four hours up to 1600 GMT, when air traffic controllers joined the action.
Civil servants have been particularly hit, with wages cut by an average of 15 per cent, in addition to tax hikes and a pension freeze agreed to help restore the country’s finances in return for a €110 billion EU/IMF bailout.
“Thank God I don’t have a family. I’d be in great trouble. They’ve slashed my salary by 20 per cent,” said Christos Kourniotis (44), a public school teacher marching in Athens. “We can’t go on like this.” But fewer than 3,000 people turned out at a peaceful protest march, chanting “thieves” and “crooks” and holding banners reading “tax the rich” and “no sacrifices for the IMF” – a far smaller crowd than in similar demonstrations this summer. A pension reform protest in July drew 12,000 people, already a drop from the 50,000 who took to the streets on May 5th. Public and private sector unions have staged six general strikes this year, but their failure to change the government’s course has discouraged protesters. Many Greeks have also been put off by the deaths of three people at a protest in May.
The government this week announced further belt-tightening in next year’s draft budget. The economy is seen contracting by 2.6 per cent in 2011, after a 4 per cent slump this year.Private sector union GSEE has said it will not strike any time soon, easing pressure on the ruling socialists as they struggle to pull Greece out of its worst recession since 1979.
But civil servants will not back down, said their union, which represents half a million workers.