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Subject: 	[Marxism] Second Strike Paralyzes Greece
Date: 	Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:43:10 -0500
From: 	Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>
Reply-To: 	Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
To: 	aorta <aorta at home.nl>


NY Times February 25, 2010
Second Strike Paralyzes Greece
By NIKI KITSANTONIS

ATHENS — Flights at Greek airports were canceled, public
transportation was halted, and schools closed Wednesday as
public-sector employees and private-sector workers walked off
their jobs in the second 24-hour strike in two weeks against
austerity measures.

The government is under intense pressure to plug a budget deficit
estimated at 12.7 percent of gross domestic product and to avert
the first national default among the 16 countries that use the euro.

The day was largely peaceful, though police officers fired tear
gas to disperse around 50 young demonstrators who pelted them with
stones and paint near the Parliament building in the city center.
They were part of a crowd of more than 20,000 who marched holding
banners reading “tax the rich” and “hands off our pension funds.”

At the same time, government officials and representatives of the
European Commission, the European Central Bank and the
International Monetary Fund were discussing the imposition of
additional measures to reduce state spending and increase revenue.
But the strike included journalists, effectively creating a media
blackout that kept Greeks in the dark about any progress.

Greece has already announced wage freezes, bonus cuts, tax
crackdowns and pension reforms over the past month meant to save
some $6.7 billion.

The new measures, which the government has not yet confirmed but
are expected to be announced next week, include a 2 percent
increase in the 19 percent value-added tax, higher fuel prices and
the possible abolition of one of two additional months of pay
received by public-sector workers and by employees at many private
firms.

“What else are they going to cut, the air that we breathe?” said
Kiki Oikonomou, a 47-year-old administrative employee at a state
school for disabled children. “This is like a jail sentence.
Where’s the hope?”

According to Paraskevi Androni, 26, an unemployed engineer whose
short-term contract with the privatized state carrier Olympic Air
expired recently, the abolition of the extra pay would bring
misery to workers and businesses alike.

“People rely on this additional wage to pay for basic needs,” she
said. “If it gets cut, people will stop spending and even more
small businesses will close.” As for her own employment prospects,
she said “I try to be optimistic but I’m worried about the future.”

Another engineer milling in the crowd before Wednesday’s march
said he believed many more protests would follow. “If people see
the minority living a good life and their wages plummeting,
they’re going to take to the streets,” said Haralambos Dramantis,
a 60-year-old employee with the state power board. “We haven’t
seen the big uprising yet but it will come.”

He added that the strike, by farmers, tax collectors, customs
officials and others in recent weeks was “just the beginning.”

Addressing a sea of protesters from a lectern bedecked with a
banner reading, “People and their needs above the markets,” the
head of main labor union encouraged public resistance to the
government’s austerity measures. “We refuse to pay the price for a
crisis that we didn’t create,” the leader, Yiannis Panagopoulos, said.

He added that Greece has become “a Ping-Pong ball in a game being
played by global speculators,” a reference to the financial markets.

The strike came a day after the international credit ratings
agency Fitch downgraded Greece’s four largest banks on fears that
Greece’s efforts to bring down its deficit through austerity
measures would reduce demand for loans and curb bank profits.

“It is clear,” said Giorgos Lakopoulos of Ta Nea, a center-left
daily, that European Union officials “do not believe the austerity
measures heralded to date are adequate to reduce the deficit by
four percentage points this year.”

“They want more,” he said.

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