In an unprecedented move for a prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, openly criticized the country’s unions that have launched a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, the second within a couple of days.
“Once again, a few strike and many are in trouble!” Mitsotakis wrote on his private Facebook account taking an open opposition against the strike, launched by the unions that oppose changes in labor law, especially those regarding the voting procedures for a strike.
Για μία ακόμη φορά, απεργούν οι λίγοι και ταλαιπωρούνται οι πολλοί. Οι Έλληνες κουράστηκαν, πλέον, να δοκιμάζονται από πρακτικές περασμένων δεκαετιών. Είναι καιρός να πάμε μπροστά. Και θα πάμε! https://t.co/XSBkypidNJ pic.twitter.com/6wZ7aKQZ2P
— Kyriakos Mitsotakis (@kmitsotakis) October 2, 2019
With ” a few” the Prime Minister refers to the professional unionists who decide for a strike or not. Public sector union ADEDY and private sector union umbrella GSEE represents workers and employees from all labor sectors. Unions members elect the board and legitimize the executive committee to decide for a strike or not.
“This is because some trade unionists react to transparency,” he told to the unions criticism that the new strike decision procedures should be not with physical presence of the unionist but through electronic voting.
“Professional trade unionists have lost touch with the world of work and do not realize that the employees themselves want more involvement and democracy in their decision-making,” Mitsotakis noted .
“We legislate for associations to be representative and accountable. And the majority should be the ones who will decide on the attitude of the employees, optionally introducing the possibility of electronic voting,” he added.
Expressing his “solidarity” with the citizens, Mitsotakis wrote that “I stand by the millions of citizens who are being tested today because this is what a minority wanted. Greeks are now tired of being tempted by practices of the past decades.”
“It’s time to move on. And we will!” Mitsotakis concluded.
He received a general applaud on Facebook, but dozens of negative comments on Twitter.
Opposition parties sharply criticized the Prime Minister with SYRIZA speaking of “arrogance and authoritarianism” and describing his statement like a “press release issued by the Federation of Enterprises.” Mitsotakis “openly opposes the constitutionally guaranteed right to strike” SYRIZA said and accused the Prime Minister of “serving the few.”
“Unfortunately, the many pay for the labor policy promoted by Mr Mitsotakis,” KINAL/PASOK said in a statement.”The changes lead to a breach of collective bargain agreements, depreciation of wages and workers’ rights,” it added among others.
Describing the labor bill as “shameful,” communist KKE said “the prime minister, who has been elected with less than 30% of the Greek citizens, has the right to speak about minority strikers, only to conceal his plan to attack wages, collective bargaining and workers’ rights conquered by struggles and blood.” KKE urged the PM to seek for “professional unionists in New Democracy.”
In his post, the Prime Minister of “all Greeks” as he loves to describe himself, degrades the unions and the right of all workers to strike.
His post has two main messages. that 1) “strike is bad” and 2) “citizens in trouble” are more sacred than a strike.
All private and state media including many mainstream news websites, majority of public transport means, bank and hospital personnel are among the strikers on October 2.
PS Talking about citizens in real trouble: a cancer patient can wait a minimum of 6 week in order to get an appointment for a magnetic resonance imaging MRI in a public hospital. If one is really unlucky, he can wait two months…
