General Confederation of Employees of Greece (GSEE), which represents private sector workers, has decided to hold a 24-hour general strike on February 23, with a rally starting at 11:00 am the same day at Pedion tou Areos in Athens.
Greece’s biggest labor union says it will hold the general strike to protest austerity measures taken to address the country’s debt crisis.
GSEE is holding the strike to demand the signing of sector collective labour agreements, prevent dismissals, prevent occasional and other forms of flexible employment, demand action against high prices and protest against the drastic reduction of purchasing power of workers and pensioners.
“We will continue our mobilisation against the blackmailing and anti-worker strictures imposed by [Greece’s international lenders] that are no better than loan sharks to which the government submits and imposes their policies,” GSEE said in a statement.
The union federation also wants to put a stop to special company agreements using the pretext of the crisis, prevent policies for further cutbacks in supplementary pensions and ensure that collective agreements are respected, as well as labour rights and the state-owned status of public utilities and companies.
Greece’s federation of public-sector union, ADEDY, which has about 400,000 members, said on Wednesday that it would be joining GSEE, the country’s main private labor union, for the 24-hour strike on February 23 to protest the government’s ongoing austerity drive.
In a statement, ADEDY said it would be joining the action “to protest cuts to wages and benefits and to express solidarity with workers in the private sector.”
Together the two unions represent around 2.5 million workers.
Source: AAP, Reuters, Dow Jones, Kathimerini