Greece’s public sector unions umbrella ADEDY will launch a half-day strike on Monday, July 8th 2013 to protest the upcoming mass lay-offs in the public sector. The strike will stat at 12 o’ clock noon. There will be a gathering at 12:30 at Karaiskaki Square in downtown Athens and a march to Ministry of Administrative Reform.
After 3-year delay the Greek government has no other choice but to accept the Troika demands to trim down the country’s public sector. At least on the paper …. because every time what-ever Greek government agrees on the paper but it never proceeds to fulfill the given promise.
This time the Troika was adamant on the issue and even used the same blackmail weapon as in the past when Greece’s lenders AND the Greek government wanted to push some austerity measures and force the Greek citizens to accept them: “Either reforms (wages, pensions, health care cuts, tax hikes) or no bailout money”.
This time the slogan was “either lay-off or no next bailout tranche.”
After the usual ‘tough negotiations’ Greek Administrative Reform minister and Troika agreed on the dismissal of 4,000 civil servants, the “transfer” of 12,500 people and “labor reserve” of total 25,000 people until the end of the year.
Labor reserve: The personnel will be sent home with 75% of the salary for 6-9 months. If no a new position will be found for them – to replace those who left the public service due to retirement – the personnel will be dismissed.
Transfer:
5,000 secondary education teachers will be transferred to primary education.
2,000 teachers will be on ‘labor reserve’
2,500-3,000 municipality personnel will be on ‘labor reserve’.
End of Municipality Police
HA! Why do Greeks need municipality police? Away with them!
There are 4,000 municipality policemen, 1,100 of them in the Greek capital with the four million inhabitants.
The Troika/Government plan foresees that the majority of municipality policemen (3,500 or more or less, it doesn’t make any difference) people will be transferred to Greek police and the rest will be dismissed.
Video: unionists boo the Troikans in general and IMF’s Thomsen in particular. They think, he cared? Unless his translator made the mistake to translate the Greek swearing into English.
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Despite the agreement the Greek government has still to do a lot of work to fill the numeric gaps and meet the targets.
Yes, the numbers seem high because until now the government managed to dismiss a whole of four (4) civil servants. It did not manage to dismiss even those who have been charged and judged for breaching of duty, stealing money from the public service and/or committed other criminal acts.
ALAS! Now the masses will will get a kick in the ass and will be allowed to go home and be paid for up to six or 9 months with 75% of their former salary. Whether they were good civil servants or not. Whether they have jobless family members, mortgages, sick parents, studying children or whatever obligations.
Folks, I agree with the lay-offs of civil servants but not in the usual elephant-in-a-porcelain-shop Greek way.
And yet, the dismissals have to be seen in real world…
There is always a reason to mock about what happening in Greece – ALWAYS! 🙂
PS typos! typos! typos! Those to be dismissed are not “people”, they are “numbers”.
“Masses” LOL!!! Into labour reserve go 2000 teachers, 3000 municipal workers and 500 former municipal policemen… That’s a lousy 5500, of the 150.000 total that is agreed in the MoU for 2014(?)… But yes you are right it IS a 1000% improvement on what they achieved until now. 🙂
OK they get 75% of their salaries for 9 months and might be fired after that. Don’t think anybody in the private sector has been treated that generously the last couple of years. And the probably go WITH a handsome pack of money and all kinds of other benefits they are entitled to. And how many of them will get another position through the backdoor?
When I am right and elections will be held somewhere after the German elections then most of them will get a nice cozy position in the runup to that.
Not all of them, of course, just the ones that have the ‘right connections’.
I therefore agree with you totally, KTG, “And yet, the dismissals have to be seen in real world…
There is always a reason to mock about what happening in Greece – ALWAYS!”
it is ‘mass lay-offs’ as it concerns each separate sector at once. Not sure about the benefits & other nice compensations (thinking there is a cap of 15K of compensation in public sector indepent. from years of work).
I wonder how the gov’t will deal with the increased unemployment numbers …
you try to compete me in mocking or what?
I wouldn’t DARE try to compete you in mocking!!! I would always loose that one!
But I don’t wonder “how the gov’t will deal with the increased unemployment numbers”. 5500 on a total of 1 million? That’s not even showing up in a pie-chart! There were months when the total new unemployed in the private sector were double that, if I remember well. And 15k is more than a lot of people in that same private sector are earning in a year…
Now the summer season has started. Strikes are the last thing Greece can have. But hey! Who cares! Now they are scratching the surface of the golden house of the public sector everything is allowed and possible! 🙂
Thank you. I even consider changing the name of the blog into “Keep Mocking, Greece”.
till end of 2014 Greek state has to get rid of 15,000 people. but let’s not argue on this point.
as for strikes: whenever there is a strike, foreigners complain about how it will affect tourism -even in times when tourists sit in their snow houses in the north of Europe. Please, give us a strike-timetable and check the days when Greeks should be allowed to strike.
BTW: I know no tourist who would go to a tax office or other public service during vacation.
No tourist knows the finer points and differences about who will now be on strike and who will not. Public servants on strike might for most also mean air traffic controllers, ferry operators, local busses, to name just a few of the minor ones. Then there are the people who work at museums and archeological sites. Always wonderful to arrive in Athens with possibly no public transport and the Acropolis closed…
And it’s not only the foreigners who complain about this. I have read enough calls for a strike ‘truce’ for the summer, because of the damage it does to Greece as a holiday destination.
But you are right, Greece needs to sack 15.000 civil servants at the end of 2015. In total Greece has to get rid of 100.000 civil servants at the end of 2016 according to this newsclip from May: