With the strike of university administrative employees about to enter its 13th consecutive week and the risk of the academic semester going to waste, the employees at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens and the National Technical University of Athens appear divided.
According to rumors, which have been denied by all implicated sides, the Minister of Education Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos met with administrative employee representatives on Sunday evening in an effort to come to a mutually-accepted solution.
The president of the federation of administrative employees Fr. Vortelinos stated that he could not confirm if any administrative employees went to work last, in response to the comments by the union’s general secretary Dimitris Sakatos on Friday, which indicated that the strike was going to end.
As the uncertainty mounts though, the strike committee at the University of Athens has arranged for groups of strikers to safeguard the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Law, the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Science (TEEFA), the Rector offices at Propylaea and the entrances to the university campus in Zografou. The strikers’ goal is to disallow any of their colleagues from going to work.
The tension between the strike committee and the board members of administrative employee union at the University of Athens, which escalated last week during a critical vote to continue the strike, is indicative of the uncertainty and confusion amongst the employees.
At the same time, some have suggested that political games are being played at the expense of students. New Democracy’s student youth party DAP has accused SYRIZA and students of leftist groups of cultivating a “climate of terror” in the University and called for a new vote.
