Galery

3

2

1

Anastasia Balezdrova

The vacation month of August in Athens is not what it was. Instead of empty streets and tourists the area around Syntagma Square was filled with police officers who cut off Vasilisis Sofiyas Ave. for the protest of several hundred employees in state enterprises in front of the Greek Parliament.

Today the cabinet brings to vote an amendment according to which many state enterprises will be closed or merged with others, if it is found that they "burden the state budget directly or indirectly, or have the same subject of action with other agencies or with the goal to streamline the cost for their function."

Initially, the government announced that changes will affect ten enterprises, including the Company for control of state property, the National Radio Television, the Company for tourism development, the State Company for construction of hospital buildings, the Institute of Mining and Geological Research and five others. This, however, will be just the beginning, because the amendment expressly states that the regulations will apply "to other entities of private law which are regularly subsidized by state funds or the state is the owner of their share capital."

Civil servants from Xanthi, Thessaloniki and Kozani traveled all night to get to Athens and together with their colleagues from the capital to express their dissatisfaction with the government's intentions. Most of them work in the Greek service for small and medium-sized companies and Crafts, the Institute for technical seismology and seismic structures and the agency for management of public facilities.
Twenty-eight employees from the Institute of Technical Seismology in Thessaloniki participated in the protest. According to them the merger with the Agency for seismic planning and protection will not have a positive result for the functions and finances of both state-owned enterprises. "The Agency for seismic planning uses existing knowledge on operational planning level, i.e. in order to issue newsletters and technical documents. Our Institute is research based, it creates new knowledge and focuses on relevant research, which distinguishes it from other research bodies," said Mary, who handed out leaflets to passing citizens and lawmakers. "I am a mother of two young children and I take care of them alone. The only person who helps me, keeping in mind her small pension is my mother. What will I do if they decide to move me to Athens? ".

The changes affect her colleague Panagiotis, few years before he retires. "I started working in the public sector later on. In the beginning I had my own business which did not go well. I was unemployed for about six months when I applied myself to the institute without having anybody's support. They hired me and I am pleased that with this job I was able to raise my children and give them the proper education. I'm fully aware that we cannot avoid change, but the uncertainty is killing us. They will introduce this new status of employees in the reserve. Okay, but when the six months pass, what happens? Will we return to our work or get fired? Nobody knows the answer to this question."

Despite the "revolutionary" songs echoing from the speakers and the passionate speeches by members of the Communist Party and the Radical Left Coalition SYRIZA, who found the opportunity to give speeches against the government policy, the majority protesters were peaceful and said they are not against change. "To be honest, state-owned enterprises really need cleaning in order to remove the rotten ones. But this must be done correctly and not with the main criterion being to belong to the ruling party," said Evangelia, who will also retire after a few years.

Meanwhile, employees from the Greek defense systems held a protest outside the Ministry of Finance against the government's decision to privatize the state enterprise. Some more passionate demonstrators provoked the police, but clashes were brief.