Athens becomes once again paralyzed with the strike of the public and interurban transport. Trains, subway, buses, trolleys and trams will not move in the capital to 4.00 pm on Wednesday afternoon as part of the protest against the state railways privatization law that the parliament has to discuss later this week. The subway and the public electric train started the strike at 12 pm and the other transport facilities started it an hour earlier at 11 am.
The protest began in front of the building of the State Railways on Karolu street in Athens. Officials in train transport organizations, trade union leaders and representatives of the left political movements in the country gathered there. Strikers boycotted the building. They blocked the central entrance with a protest banner saying “Railways are public”. A woman gave people white T-shirts reading “Trains are owned by the people, not by the private capital.” There was a group of women among the strikers that said especially for GRReporter that their main concerns relate to the lack of clarity about the rescue plan for the railway transport. “Everybody is talking about rescuing but it is all about layoffs,” said a woman of forty years of age. She was working in the railways administration in the past six years. She also said: “The country is in crisis and it is hard to find a new job. I am on strike because I do not want to be jobless.” A colleague of hers said she was working in the company for the past 16 years and she is a mother of two children. She is afraid for the future, regardless of the government promises that there will be no redundancies, but just staff transfer from one state institution to another.
“I do not want to talk to any journalists. I want to keep my job,” severely said one of the old Greek railways workers who has working experience of 24 years. The government plans to reduce the employees of the railways by about 30% by transferring some of them in various state organizations and retire others prematurely. Currently, the people working in all departments of the railways are six thousand. Following the reform presented by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, their number should be reduced to about four thousand and many of the lines will be offered to private companies for concession. Private companies that will invest in their development in the long term will take their management. Other railway sections will be completely shut down due to bankruptcy.
The Greek railways confederation continues the protest march to the Athens town hall on the square of Kodziya. There the employees of the railways will meet the employees in other public transport companies. All together, they will go to the building of the Ministry of Finance. Workers in the public transport joined the protest of their railway colleagues as a sign of commitment to them, and to express their disagreement with the economic policy of the George Papandreou’s government. Currently, the most serious problem of the public transport is the big financial deficit the public companies have accumulated over the years. State railways have a deficit of one billion euros, while total losses recorded in the company balance exceed € 10 billion. Public transport companies have a “very modest” deficit of € 2.5 billion. Having completed the reforms in the railways, the government plans to tackle them. It is expected many urban routes to be closed and the staff in the subway and the urban electric train companies to be considerably reduced.
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