New 48 hour strike was declared by the Athens municipality cleaning services. Their demands are to be hired on fulltime contracts and not on part-time as it is now. The initiative is of the Greek Employees and Workers Federation and over 850 will participate in the strike – employees of the municipality working for the cleaning services and for other public services. The current strike will be also joined by 1600 public employees, who are on fulltime contracts and are members of the Workers Union of Athens municipality. Their participation in the strike is manifestation of sympathy and they will stop working for four hours during the following two days. Daily Athens “produces” about 1400 tons of garbage and if the strike continues the stores Christmas decoration will be hidden behind tons of trash on the streets.
The first strike activities of the Cleaning Services were stopped on December 5 of this year, because of a court order. Athens mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis filed a complaint in the court against the strikers that their protest are real threat for the public health and the strike was finally announced to be unjustified and illegal. It seems the Athens mayor has changed his mind about the strike, because in a speech he said: “We understand the problem of the strikers but for such issues responsible is the government of the country and not the local authorities.”