Galery

1

Victoria Mindova

Protests in Greece on the second day of the blockade of the main building of the Public Power Corporation by the employees union continue. The situation was out of control and the police arrested Nikos Fotopoulos. Another 14 trade unionists charged with public order offences and hindering the public enterprise operation were arrested with him. The case has been adjourned until 30 November and the detainees have been released.

Trade unions do not like the prospects of further cuts and new taxes and today, the Union of Civil Servants (ADEDY) has announced a four-hour strike again.

Civil servants supported the actions of the Greek trade unionists from GENOP-DEI and in an open letter, identified the actions of the police as violent and brutal. According to the civil trade unions, through this action, the coalition government wants to send a clear message that the measures set out in the recovery program would be implemented and workers' protests would not be accepted. In their statement, trade unionists used a little more pathos: "The coalition government wants to send a message to anyone who fights for his rights, to every citizen and everyone having financial difficulties, to suffer the extreme, unfair and provocative attack on the income of each household. 1. The measures will be implemented sweepingly and without negotiations and 2. Each attempt to resist will be suppressed by all possible means through authoritarianism and cruelty."

The report showing the arrest and the explanations of witnesses shows that there was no police violation or cruelty, but the act of arresting the leader of the Public Power Corporation trade union has apparently shocked his colleagues. The decision is based on the principle, "Six of one and half a dozen of the other." When they were deprived of the right to block the building where the bills are printed, the trade unionists of the Public Power Corporation announced the 48-hour labour strike and again, found a way to hamper the issue of some of the bills including the extra property tax.

Reduction in wages in state enterprises is on average 35%, which has incensed the Union of Civil Servants (ADEDY). The labour reserve measure will be enforced next month and the first to enter it will be those civil servants close (2 years) to retirement age. They number between four and six thousand. Then, 30,000 civil servants will fall into the labour reserve, which is the last step before dismissal, according to trade unions. The labour reserve law was voted this autumn to smoothly reduce the number of civil servants in public administration, which has proven to be cumbersome, inefficient and a great cost to the state budget.

Meanwhile, unemployment in Greece has reached 18.4%, the main victims being private-sector employees. According to the data of the Ministry of Employment and Social Security, 36 programmes to maintain employment have been operating in labour offices since 2010, which have not developed new jobs, but limited the expansion of unemployment by about 4% - 5%. "We continue working on new programmes that are applied immediately, so in 2012, 27 new opportunities to subsidize jobs will be up and running. They have an initial budget of € 1.3 billion and are provided for 310,000 unemployed. The majority of them are state funds and the remainder comes from European subsidies under the national framework for structural development. "We cannot terminate any of the old programmes and will not do so, because the conditions in the economy are the same, or even worse," the Minister of Employment and Social Security George Koutroumanis told reporters.

He explained that currently, one of the biggest problems is poor awareness of those concerned about the opportunities that ongoing programmes provide. This explains the low realization of planned objectives. He stressed that the Ministry seeks to identify people with the least ability to find jobs and to create special programmes for them. Koutroumanis did not deny that next year will be extremely difficult and labour offices will help operating companies to retain or create new jobs by financially supporting the social security of newly appointed employees or the preservation of existing jobs.