On the European Day of Action, 29 September, public transport and other services in Athens went on strike from 12 to 16 PM. GSEE, the General Confederation of Greek Workers, and ADEDY, the Civil Servants’ Confederation organized a mass demonstration outside the European Union offices in the capital. The union confederations accuse the Papandreou government to follow closely the EU and IMF guidelines, focusing on budget cuts and lowering wages and benefits. Against this backdrop, it remains interesting to remind a survey held in May 2010 on the views of Greek employees and unemployed about the new labour market measures just announced by then, including the lowering of the minimum wage for workers under 25 of age. 86% of respondents considered these measures socially unjust. The views of respondents about the most appropriate way of addressing the crisis were of great interest. Of various measures suggested to alleviate the country’s financial difficulties, most popular were criminalisation of major tax evasion (88% in favour), criminalisation of corruption in the public sector (88%), taxation of the church (87%), a bipartite agreement with Turkey on joint military spending cuts (72%), and a drastic reduction in armament programs (64%).
English: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2010/09/29/european-action-day-strike-wave ...
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2010/07/articles/gr1007019i.htm
Greek: http://www.vprc.gr/uplds/File/teleytaia%20nea/Oikonomikh ...
For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.