NIKI KITSANTONIS AND MATTHEW SALTMARSH
The New York Times
June 29, 2010
Protesters clashed with riot police during a strike against austerity measures in Athens on Tuesday.
ATHENS — Public services in Greece ground to a halt, and transportation was disrupted on Tuesday as thousands of workers joined a general strike, the fifth this year, to protest deeply unpopular spending cuts that the debt-ridden government has promised its international creditors.
The country’s two main labor unions —referred to by their acronyms A.D.E.D.Y. and G.S.E.E, and representing some three million workers — vehemently oppose a draft law that aims to raise retirement ages, reduce monthly payments to pensioners and facilitate layoffs. The bill follows from the government’s decision to accept a one-year aid package in May of about $135 billion over three years from Greece’s European partners and the International Monetary Fund.
The strike action on Tuesday was timed to coincide with the start of a debate on the bill in Parliament. The debate is expected to continue until next week.
The call from unions was expected to draw thousands onto the streets of the capital. Early in the morning, hundreds of protesters carrying banners and bullhorns started congregating outside Parliament in central Athens to express their opposition to the austerity measures.
Tuesday’s strike shut down schools, courts and tax offices and left hospitals operating with only emergency staff. International train services were suspended, as were domestic flights, but most international flights were operating normally as Greek air traffic controllers stayed on the job to avoid further harm to the crucial tourism sector, already suffering from previous walkouts.
Public transport will be suspended for most of the day, with buses and the Athens subway running only a restricted service in the morning and evening to enable demonstrators to attend protest rallies.
All news broadcasts were canceled for the day, and newspapers were not printing issues for Wednesday as journalists walked off the job.
A government official from the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection who was not authorized to speak publicly described the situation in Athens around midday as “calm.” He said that about 5,000 demonstrators were heading toward Parliament and another 5,000 linked to the Communist Party were dispersing from the same area. Officials said the government would provide details of the numbers involved in the strikes and related demonstrations later in the day. There was no immediate estimate from unions of the numbers involved.
In May, demonstrations against austerity measures in Greece turned deadly when three people were killed in a fire caused by protesters at a bank building in Athens.
Greece is not the only European country experiencing industrial shutdowns. In Spain, striking workers protesting against a 5 percent pay cut, forced the closure of the subway in Madrid for the second day on Tuesday. Unions there are also angry about public sector pay cuts designed to reduce Spain’s budget deficit, which ballooned to 11.2 percent last year.
In Greece, there were reports Tuesday of some tension near Athens at Piraeus, the country’s main port, where an estimated 400 striking workers, many from the Communist Party-backed labor unions, tried to prevent tourists and locals from boarding ferries to the Aegean islands, even though a court had declared seamen’s participation in the strike illegal.
Although some ships did leave early in the morning, not all passengers managed to board. The government official said there had been no serious incidents at the port and that most passengers holding tickets had been informed of the strike in advance and had not turned up at the port.
A similar strike by two seamen’s unions last week — which was also declared illegal — left thousands of travelers stranded for a day in Piraeus.
The tourism industry is bracing for a difficult summer. It accounts for an estimated 15 percent of Greece’s gross national product, and there are fears that the upheaval will affect arrivals during the busiest months of July and August.
The proposed austerity steps have dominated discussions in Greek offices and cafes and have been the focus of heated discussions on television here. In one show late Monday, the head of the main civil servants’ union, Spyros Papaspyros, said Greeks would never accept the proposed changes. “They violate the law and the Constitution and affect 95 percent of Greeks — there is no way they will pass,” he said.
It is not only the Greek unions that oppose the changes. Local media have reported that several MPs from the ruling Socialist Party are also considering rebelling and voting against the bill at the end of next week. Prime Minister George Papandreou, who only has a 7-seat majority in Greece’s 300-seat Parliament, last week threatened to call general elections if his party’s lawmakers fail to back him.
“We cannot afford not to move forward,” he said on Friday.
Greece currently spends about 12 percent of its gross domestic product on pensions, a figure expected to double by 2050 if no changes are made.
