The opening of the new week sees the first reactions to the placing of Greece under IMF supervision: air-force pilots and means of transport strike.
Only hours after the Greek PM Giorgos Papandreou announced the entering of Greece under IMF supervision from the remote island of Kastelorizo last Friday, stressing that "hellenism is beginning a new Odyssey", a sponteneous protest march of 5,000 organised on-line and via cell phone texting took to the streets of Athens, leading to clashes with the police and the arrest of a 15 year old girl. At the same time, banks were reported to be besieged by customers seeking to withdraw their deposits in fear of a default.
The opening of the new week has seen the government announcing the merging or abolition of a series of public services, the only way to constitutionally sack civil servants. And yet, reactions to the IMF supervision have been rather mild. The means of mass transport (one of the sectors threatened by merging) performed a 4h stoppage today, while GSEE, the private sector union umbrella, refused to attend the planned meeting with the Minister of Labour, in a ritual but empty gesture of discontent. Perhaps the most unexpected reaction has come however from the armed forces, where Air-Force pilots have staged a white strike refusing to fly their scheduled training flights. The strike has infuriated the Ministry of Defence, especially as it seems like underwater special forces and submarine forces are soon to perform similar white strikes. The reason for the strike is the taxing of the 6,000 Euro biannual subsidy to Air-Force pilots.
At the same time the harbour of Piraeus remains closed due to the continuing seafaring workers strike. Meanwhile PAME (Communist Party union umbrella) allied hotel workers have occupied the Ministry of Labour. The workers have declared they will continue the occupation until the Minister comes to meet them.
Comments
Don't know if this just shows
Don't know if this just shows my ignorance - but what's the difference between a white strike and an ordinary red, black and blue one? Is it a strike where people continue to work, but refuse to do specific tasks? a work-to-rule? or what?
@Samotnaf: Man, it's
@Samotnaf: Man, it's lingo-problem, simple mistake or just read not so fast! pl! He meant "wild" - makes sense?
Yeah, regarding anniversary of the assassination of Katerina who didn't read?
Anyway, interessting. There was a post on indymedia/ger leading to indyathens and there a german online paper(?) was suggesting somethang strange. I've tried to check their site and found an article about that the french authorities and the british too have problems with how arrogant germoney is acting. When you visit a conservative greek's english version of a wellknown paper, you'll find heavy shit, sounds totally different to what i was seeing or hearing from t.v. here, haha.
(Germany owes the greek people between 50(5) and 7(0)5 billions and observe their arrogance! A german commie paper says 55, cuz 115,000 DM that germany gave Greece for joining the Euro (or so) would make the difference in today's change...)
FREEDOM FOR LEONARD PELTIER
FREE THE ATHENS SIX
Quote: (Germany owes the
Actually Germany stands to make a profit on this. They lend to Greece at 5%, which is below the rate that Greece can get on the international market, but they can raise the money on German state bonds, which because they are such safe investments only pay intrest at about 2%.
That is the theory at least.
The problem arises because nobody knows if the money can ever be paid back.
Devrim
Samotnaf wrote: Is it a
Samotnaf
that or they might decide to "take it easy," or even to temporarily stop working altogether. A black strike by contrast means there is a walkout. This terminology is fairly mainstream in Eastern/Southern Europe AFAIK.
He didn't say "wild", he
He didn't say "wild", he meant 'white strike'. this is the term that it's used. Probably it means exactly what you said 'It is a strike where people continue to work, but refuse to do specific tasks'. It's easy to understand that the army cannot stop completely, but can pause their scheduled training flights.
hopefully Taxi is busy and
hopefully Taxi is busy and not caught by pigs...
here is some update about the mayday actions in Greece, it's partly english/german
may it help you to get informed, check the comments too (updater f.i.)
http://de.indymedia.org/2010/05/279690.shtml
http://de.indymedia.org/2010/05/279715.shtml
ELEFTHERIA and sorry for the misunder!