ATHENS: Millions of Greeks walked off their jobs Wednesday in a show of defiance against a pension overhaul.
The national strike – the third since December – capped nearly a month of labor unrest that has brought power blackouts, heaps of uncollected garbage and transport disruption.
Tourists bound for Greece for the Easter holidays faced travel delays as Olympic Airlines, the country’s struggling state carrier, canceled more than 60 domestic and international flights. Other airlines rescheduled flights while commuters in Athens – home to half the country’s population of 11 million – struggled to reach their destinations. The police fired tear gas in the capital after some elements of a crowd estimated at tens of thousands threw rocks and firebombs at security forces.
All public services and schools were shut and state hospitals treated only emergency cases as doctors joined engineers, bank employees, journalists, lawyers and magistrates in the protests.
“The Greeks haven’t gone mad,” said Yiannis Panagopoulos, president of the General Confederation of Greek Workers, the country’s biggest labor union. “This new pension package has to be scrapped. It is unjust and unfair to all categories of workers, mainly working mothers and young people entering the labor force.”
The bill would raise the retirement age of working mothers to 55 from 50 and would encourage most employees to work past the current retirement age of 65, receiving a 3.3 percent pay increase for every extra year of employment.
Beating drums and blaring “The bill is a fraud,” demonstrators were hoping the walkout would ignite the widespread industrial action that paralyzed the country in 2001 and sapped the socialist government’s appetite for pension overhaul.
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis has vowed to stand his ground.
The country’s retirement system may derail government finances within a decade as pension funds draw more tax money to finance increased numbers of pensioners, according to the country’s central bank governor, Nicholas Garganas.
The protest movement is seen as the first major challenge to Karamanlis, whom analysts say is attempting to succeed where his predecessors have failed by standing firm against strikers.
“The reforms send out the right message,” said George Kirtsos, publisher of the Athens daily City Press. “But Greece’s pension problem is so severe that these timid reforms will not solve the problem.”
“It’s like putting a bandage on a hemorrhaging patient,” he said.
According to a recent poll commissioned by the country’s banking unions, 71 percent of the population disagrees with the government’s changes.
“Even if Parliament passes them, we will continue our battle,” said Panagopoulos, the union leader. “The legislation will need to be implemented, and there, resistance will reach its climax.”