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Greek workers hold general strike over
high cost of living and call for collective wage agreements
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[November 20, 2024]
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek public and private sector workers
walked off the job Wednesday in a 24-hour general strike that is
disrupting services across the country, with public transport in the
capital suspended for several hours and ferries that connect the islands
to the mainland tied up in port.
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Commuters stand outside the closed main metro Syntagma station, during a
nationwide general strike organized by private and public sector unions
demanding for better wages, in Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024.
(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis) |
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Medical staff at state-run hospitals and teachers are also
participating in the strike, called by labor unions to protest
the high cost of living and demand collective wage agreements
that were scaled back during Greece’s nearly decade-long
financial crisis that began in 2010.
Journalists at Greek media outlets held their own 24-hour strike
in support on Tuesday, pulling all news broadcasts off the air
for the day, so they could cover Wednesday’s general strike.
Protest marches were planned for central Athens later Wednesday.
Unions have criticized the center-right government of Prime
Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for failing to tackle inflation and
housing policies, which have eroded workers’ living standards.
Greece’s financial crisis saw a quarter of the country’s economy
wiped out after decades of profligate spending left it locked
out of international bond markets. Successive international
bailouts came on condition the country implement deeply
unpopular reforms that included pension and wage cuts and saw
poverty and unemployment rates spiral.
Greece has since returned to healthy growth and recently
achieved investment-grade status again, but it still retains the
highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the European Union.
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