Transport paralyzed as strikes intensify
Commuters? nerves will be frayed further on Friday as taxi drivers? are to join staff on all forms of public transport in a 24-hour walkout as workers prepare for a week of strikes and protests ahead of a parliamentary vote on the government?s latest austerity measures at the end of next week.
Transport workers, who walked out on Thursday, were to continue their action on Friday. As a result there is to be no services on the Athens metro, tram, city buses, trolley buses and the electric railway (ISAP) and no taxis running. Intercity trains and the suburban railway (Proastiakos) will be running on Friday but are to stop operating next Tuesday through Thursday.
Meanwhile the country?s main private sector workers? union, GSEE, said it would join the civil servants? union, ADEDY, for a 48-hour general strike next Wednesday and Thursday. Unionists said they were ratcheting up their action in a bid to overturn draft legislation that foresees wage and pension cuts, an overhaul of the civil service and a new tax code.
Opposition to the planned reforms was clear on Thursday. Angry civil servants occupied no fewer than seven ministries while municipal employees continued sit-ins at offices around the country. Museums and archaeological sites were closed for the second day in the row.
Customs officials on Friday are to launch a 10-day strike, which is expected to lead to food and fuel shortages, while tax collectors are to start a four-day strike on Monday.
One of the most vehement protests has been that of GENOP, the union representing the Public Power Corporation, whose members took over the company?s billing department on Wednesday to stop it from sending bills containing a new emergency property tax to homeowners. After indicating that they would end the sit-in, and intervene instead if PPC attempts to cut the power supply to homeowners refusing to pay the tax, GENOP?s president, Nikos Fotopoulos, announced yesterday that the occupation would continue. He was speaking after PPC said it would find a different venue to print the bills for the tax.
