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Anastasia Balezdrova

At the height of the tourist season in Greece, the Federation of Workers and Employees of the Food Tourism Sector announced that they would hold a 24-hour strike on August 23. The protests in Athens and some of the major tourist destinations will insist on keeping the professions of those working in the tourism industry in the list of hard jobs and not changing the conditions for granting social benefits to seasonal workers.

According to the chairman of the Federation Panagiotis Proundzos, the base on which the Ministry of Employment will make the new list of hard jobs seriously questions the inclusion of waiters, cooks, bakers, chambermaids, confectioners and washers in it. GRReporter contacted Panagiotis Proundzos who explained the reasons for the strike and told about the difficulties surrounding its implementation.

"Our professions were identified as hard many years ago. Now, they want them removed from the list to reduce costs. Our position is that the working conditions of employees in tourism remain the same. The consequences on the health due to the burdens the waiters lift, the high temperatures in the kitchens of cooks and the chemical compounds chambermaids breathe remain the same.

Our opinion that the Minister clearly does not share is that the meaning of hard jobs is to protect the workers' health and enable the people to work after reaching a certain age. The consequences will be tragic for the people aged over 60 years because it is known that the employers in our country avoid appointing people at that age. When they are fired, they are unable to find jobs because employers prefer to hire young people. "

How many are your members and how many are the employees in the tourism sector?

Our industry is huge and chaotic. We are representatives of three main categories of employees: in hotels, in restaurants services and in sweets and pastry shops. We are talking about 10,000 hotels and over 150,000 restaurants, taverns and cafes. It is therefore very difficult to attract all those employees to become members of the Federation and this creates additional difficulties in organizing protests and strikes. The employers are strong in this case and so many of our colleagues are forced to work without insurance and at very low wages.

Do you know the number of uninsured?
 
The tourism sector employs over 550,000 people. Of them only 130,000 workers in the catering and 98,000 in hotels are insured or about 230,000. The rest who are over 55-60 per cent of the workers are uninsured. Unfortunately, different organizations and insurance funds argue that this percentage is 30 per cent. I think it does not show the actual numbers. I already mentioned the number of objects. It is not possible the inadequate state mechanisms we have now to count all the people. They actually draw their conclusions from sample inspections and claim that one in three workers in tourism is uninsured. The truth, however, is that the uninsured are much more. They are two of every three.

What are your expectations for the participation of workers in the strike? You will hold a protest in Athens, but Greece is at the height of tourist season. How will you hold the strike?

We have branches throughout the country. We have primary organizations at the main tourist destinations and they are very developed and dynamic on some places. Protests against the removal of any of our professions from the list of hard jobs will be held there too.

I admit that we have difficulties in organizing dynamic strike actions, but we can not do anything but try to do it. We are living in times in which they are depriving us of dozens of rights and we have to justify the confidence of our colleagues.

Are you not afraid that you could become the object of attacks for boycotting the most powerful branch of the Greek economy?

We had to go on strike because the Minister will take his decision until the end of the month. We can not sit and wait and decide how to respond to the measure after its adoption.

As for boycotting the tourism, I mean that those are vain cries of danger. Tourism can not be affected by a strike. Employers are very strong and have mechanisms to break the strike. There are employees who feel insecure and are likely to go to work. So, I do not think our strike will affect tourism seriously.

What will be your next action if you do not manage to change the government's decision?

At the meeting of the board of the Federation, we decided to hold another strike but we do not know the date yet. It is possible to hold it the day when the Minister will announces the changes, if we know in advance when it will happen. We hope, however, that there will be no need to resort to it and the Minister to understand that he should not take out from the list without any justification of specialists our hard jobs that have been included in it for many years.