More transport and garbage woes
Commuters are to face fresh woes on Monday when public transport workers are planning their next 24-hour strike, probably the first in a new wave of action.
The walkout will halt services on the Athens metro, the Piraeus-Kifissia electric railway (ISAP), buses, trolley buses and the tram.
The action was announced on Friday by the unions representing the workers who are protesting fresh salary and pension cuts and the government?s plans to push thousands of employees into early retirement and put thousands more on a ?labor reserve scheme? that would see them receiving 60 percent of their salary for 12 months before possible dismissal.
The unions are planning a protest rally for Monday, to begin at noon at Kotzia Square and culminate in a march to the Finance Ministry on Syntagma Square.
City dwellers also face disruption of another kind. Municipal workers who have been blocking the entrance to the capital?s main landfill in Ano Liosia, northwestern Athens, since last Sunday have declared their determination to continue their action into next week even as thousands of tons of festering garbage accumulate in dumpsters and on street corners around Athens.
Employees, who are also protesting cuts to wages and pensions and the labor reserve scheme, appear to have been unfazed by threats of legal action by authorities. On Thursday, Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis urged the head of the Association of Municipalities and Communities of Attica (ESDKNA), Nikos Hiotakis, to ask a prosecutor to intervene and end the landfill blockade. Hiotakis refused to take legal action, noting that although the blockade might be extreme, ?the criminalization of workers? strike will not solve the problem but create new ones.?
On Friday Athens first instance prosecutor Eleni Raikou ordered a preliminary investigation into the blockade at the landfill with the aim of determining whether any offenses have been committed and who should be held accountable.
