Traffic grinds to a halt in capital

A traffic jam on Kifissias Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Athens. Public transport workers went on a 24-hour strike on Wednesday in view of the passing of a draft law on public utilities (DEKO) in Parliament. The strike was called by the Athens Labor and Employment Center (EKA), which says that the law will disrupt the labor regime at public enterprises and organizations. In other words, it claims that the law, which allows the possibility of hiring temporary employees, will abolish full-time and permanent employment while, among other things, it will ‘annihilate’ the role of the state’s ASEP hiring agency in the recruitment system. [Alexandros Vlachos/AMNA]