Trash collectors ordered to return to work

Some 3,000 civil mobilization orders had been issued by Wednesday night for Athens sanitation workers, who have been on strike last week, but unionists warned that even if the municipal employees return to work, it could take more than a month to collect all the rubbish that has piled up on the city?s streets.

The government issued the civil mobilization orders on Tuesday after failing to convince the sanitation workers, who are protesting the latest austerity measures and any attempt to allow private contractors to collect refuse, to end their protest.

The civil mobilization order, however, is unlikely to lead to the speedy collection of thousands of tons of trash on the streets of the capital. City of Athens general secretary Theodoros Livanos said it would take a few days to ensure that all the municipal employees had received their orders. The process is a fairly complicated one as the papers will have to be issued by the Attica Regional Authority, which will then deliver them to the capital?s various municipalities, which in turn will have to ensure that the orders are handed to a total of some 7,500 workers.

Giorgos Harisis, the vice president of POE-OTA, the federation of municipal workers? unions, told Skai Radio that even if the employees are forced back to work, it could still take a month to clear the 9,000 tons of rubbish that is estimated to have amassed on the streets of the capital. City of Athens officials, however, said that the collection should take no more than five days.

A similar process is under way in Thessaloniki, where officials estimate that some 3,500 tons of trash has to be collected.