Protesters from the PAME union take part in an anti-austerity march during a 24-hour general strike in Athens, November 12.
Tens of thousands of workers across Greece protested on November 12 against new European Union-dictated austerity measures, the Morning Star said that day.
The general strike was called by public-sector union federation Adedy, mainly private-sector grouping GSEE and Communist Party-linked PAME. It was supported by governing party SYRIZA, which encouraged people to take part as its creditors refuse to hand over bail-out funds until more austerity is implemented.
It was the southern European country's first general strike since radical left-wing party SYRIZA was elected in January on a platform of rejecting the crippling austerity that has driven millions of Greeks into poverty.
Greece's SYRIZA government signed up to new, savage austerity measures in July in return for bail-out funds to stop its banking system collapsing, the governing party backed the strike.
TeleSUR English said on November 12 the strike came just days after a November 10 announcement by eurozone finance ministers that they would not release US$2.2 billion in loans for Greece. The ministers said Athens had failed to deliver on a range of austerity measures and reforms as part of the agreed bailout package.
In a statement on the official SYRIZA website, SYRIZA's Labour Policy Department slammed the “neoliberal policies and extortion” pushed by Greece's creditors, describing calls for more austerity as “the theatre of the absurd”.
The statement called on all citizens to join protests, saying: “The demands of workers are becoming particularly critical” and attacking the “neoliberal policies and extortion” emanating from “political and economic centres in and outside Greece”.
The Morning Star reported: “Nearly 25,000 people took part in three separate demonstrations in central Athens, according to police figures, to protest against a new round of Brussels-imposed tax rises and savage spending cuts.
“Another 10,000 marched without incident through the country's second-largest city, Thessaloniki.
“The Athens underground and suburban railway shut down while bus, tram and train services were reduced and ferries remained tied up in port, severing connections between islands and the mainland. More than a dozen domestic flights were cancelled.
“The strike closed museums and archaeological sites, including the Acropolis, as well as schools and pharmacies. Many shops shut and hospitals were functioning with emergency staff.
“Journalists also walked off the job, pulling news bulletins off the air except to report on the strike. News websites were not updated and today's papers were cancelled.”
href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/subscribe/details">Subscribe to Green Left now! You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.