Greek May Day against austerity

This video is about a May Day demonstration in Greece in 2012.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Unions call for mass May Day action

Monday 29 April 2013

by Our Foreign Desk

Greece’s two largest unions called today for mass participation in a 24-hour general strike and demonstration on May 1.

The GSEE and Adedy unions issued a joint statement today saying that the strike would focus on demands to end austerity.

The call came after Parliament approved an emergency Bill on Sunday to pave the way for thousands of public-sector layoffs and claim an €8.8 billion (£7.4bn) payoff from its cuts-crazed international lenders.

The Bill, which only scraped through parliament in a 168-123 vote, allows for the first mass Civil Service sackings in more than a century.

About 2,000 civil servants will be laid off by the end of May, with another 2,000 following them by the end of the year and a further 11,500 by the end of 2014, making a total of 15,500.

The legislation is the latest brutal blow in the draconian austerity programme forced on Greece by its international creditors.

The government agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund this month to implement the measures as a condition of receiving the latest tranche of emergency loans.

The permanence of Civil Service jobs had been enshrined in all Greek constitutions since 1911.

It was designed to ensure the neutrality of the service and provide a form of protection from wholesale sacking when the government changed hands.

To get around the constitutional protection, the Bill stipulated that the first layoffs would take place in state agencies that will be disbanded or merged.

Another provision aims to bypass the disciplinary councils, which have previously refused to lay off people subject to disciplinary action.

More than 2,000 such cases are pending.

Civil servants’ union Adedy bitterly opposed the Bill’s provisions and held a protest outside parliament.

Authorities took strict security measures, barricading a Parliament entrance on Sunday morning, diverting traffic and shutting down an underground station two hours before the announced start of the protest.

To shorten debate, the government bundled 110 pages of legislation into a single article.

Debate in committee lasted just a single day as did debate in the full parliament, despite opposition protests and claims of a “parliamentary coup.”

Photos from 1st of May 2013 demo in Athens: here.

Related articles

• Greeks protest austerity on May Day (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Greeks stage anti-austerity strike (bbc.co.uk)
• Greek MPs to vote on mass job cuts (bbc.co.uk)
• Greek workers mark May Day with strike over austerity (irishtimes.com)
• Thousands protest against Greek government’s austerity measures (independent.co.uk)
• Greek bill opens way for 15,000 job cuts (sbs.com.au)
• From the Greek Streets › Mainstream unions GSEE, ADEDY call for General Strike on September 26 (jdeanicite.typepad.com)