“You paid for their profits, now do not pay for their crisis,” with this sign Greek syndicates organized a 24 hour strike today against the anti-workers policy of Kostas Karamanlis’ administration. The final price of the financial crisis shouldn’t be paid only by the workers but also by the industrialists. This is a request of the labor-unions who also want the government to pressure industrialists to lower their profits and to take on some of the financial crisis weight.

the strikers were all public employees as well as workers from water, power supply, and the post offices. Bank employees, teachers and university instructors also joined the protest and hospitals are accepting only emergency cases. Workers from the public transportation also participate in the strike but not for the whole 24 hours. Employees of “Olympic Airways” said that they will serve only one flight per destination and the private “Aegean Airways” said that their planes will not fly today. A two hour strike announced the mass information mediums in Greece.

Kostas Karamanlis offered today’s strike to be done with no demonstrations and rallies in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts between the police and the demonstrators but the syndicates rejected this idea. Few rallies and processions are planned for the Athens center today around noon.