Greek unions stage walkouts after new budget cuts

Greek unions yesterday staged walkouts as part of Europe-wide anti-austerity demonstrations, hours after Parliament approved fresh budget cuts linked to a new eurozone bailout. The main labour groups, private-sector GSEE and public-sector ADEDY, began a nationwide three-hour work stoppage from midday ahead of a demonstration in central Athens in the evening.

The mobilisation is part of a day of action by European labour organisations against austerity measures enacted in Greece and other struggling eurozone economies to address a debt crisis plaguing the single currency area.

“Unions in Greece will once more unite their voice with those in Europe against neo-liberal policies, demanding an equitable and fairer Europe,” GSEE and ADEDY said.

Municipal workers were also occupying town halls around the country for the duration of the walkout, their union said.

Separately, doctors are holding a one-day strike against health spending cuts included in a new austerity bill before Parliament.

Greece’s official creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, have demanded additional budget cuts to address deficit slippage before releasing a new bailout of €130 billion.

The latest rescue, after a €110 billion EU-IMF loan in 2010, is tied to a massive debt writedown with private creditors designed to reduce Greece’s €350 billion debt by €107 billion.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will attend a Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers today to discuss the Greek measures.

Papademos’ coalition government late on Tuesday secured passage of a bill containing €3.2 billion in spending cuts, including new pension reductions.

Tuesday’s bill includes 12 per cent cuts in civil servant pensions of more than €1,300 and reductions of between 10 and 20 per cent in complementary pensions of more than €200.

The latest legislation also foresees a 10 per cent cut in the salaries of senior municipal officials and a merger of state research organisations. Civil service pensioners have already sustained a 10 per cent cut in payments under measures adopted from 2010 in return for a previous EU-IMF bailout worth €110 billion.

The vote on Tuesday came after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) declared Greece in “selective default” owing to a proposed debt swap with private banks, a move that forced the European Central Bank to suspend Greek bonds as acceptable collateral for ECB loans.

The rating was lowered from S&P’s already junk-level “CC” grade for Greece, which has been seeking to avoid an outright default on its massive debt by negotiating a “voluntary” debt exchange with creditors.