To spite all the advices and recommendations of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and a number of credit rating agencies regarding lay-offs in the public sector, the Greek public employees have a mind of their own. They want higher salaries and pensions, labor contracts for all public sector workers and direct financing of their insurance funds by the state budget. With all those demands, the union of the public employees announced a 24 hour strike for today May 14^th.

The Athens public transportation is not taking part in the strike and will work on schedule. There are problems only on the Athens airport Elefterios Venizelos, due to a 4 hour strike of the air-traffic controllers between 10:00am and 02:00pm. Because of this, two of the biggest Greek airlines, Olympic and Aegean cancelled tens of flights. Participating in the strike are also doctors and the medical personnel, which is why today the Greek hospitals will work only with emergency cases.

The public employees protest procession will start today at 11:00am in the Athens center. At the same time, Greek stockbreeders will protest in front of the Ministry of Agriculture. They demand for an increase of the public subsidies and of the producer’s milk. In more detail, they want to receive ?50 per sheep and ?250 per cow and ?1.30 per liter of sheep’s milk, ?0.85 per liter of goat’s milk, and ?0.55 per liter of cow’s milk. The stockbreeders will give the government a deadline of one month to answer their demands if this does not happen, they are threatening to block border stations and key highway intersections.