The country’s largest trade union ADEDY has announced a 48-hour strike for Wednesday the 19th and Thursday the 20th of March, in response to the coalition government’s suspension and dismissal policies, as well as the troika’s latest employment-related demands.
The federation of public hospital employees POEDIN has also announced that it will participate in the strike, in protest of the upcoming dismissal of suspended employees who face dismissal at the end of March. POEDIN is also demanding the recruitment of permanent staff to cover the shortages created in light of the crisis.
In Athens the protesters will rally at Klafthmonos Square at 11am, while in Thessaloniki the rallying point will be the statue of Venizelos in the city center. On Thursday protesters will rally at Klafthmonos Square at 1pm and then march to Parliament at 3, where they will hold a demonstration and concert “in defense of public social goods and against the dismissals”.
In its announcement, ADEDY accuses the government of pretending to negotiate with the troika and conspiring with it to implement “neo-colonial demands” of Greece’s creditors. Furthermore, the trade union slammed the coalition government of intentionally being vague about rumors of further dismissals and quotes the Minister of Administrative Reform Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who had stated that “we have committed to reducing the public sector by 150,000 employees by 2015 and we estimate we will achieve that goal before 2015”.
