Striking Transport Workers To Face Consequences Of Their Fake Strike (VIDEO)

The government said on Thursday that it is going to issue civil mobilization orders to make Athens metro staff, who have been on strike for eight days, return to their jobs. Press reports said that Development Minister Costis Hatzidakis announced the decision after a four-hour emergency meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on the issue. He said that unionists have decided to take the path of blind confrontation and not to respect the decisions of Greece's courts and that the country could not be held ransom to vested interests.

The measure of civil mobilization – used against seamen, truckers and street cleaners in 2010 and 2011 – means that employees are obligated to return to work or face the prospect of going directly to jail.

On their part, workers, who are protesting their inclusion in a new unified wage structure for civil servants that will see a reduction in their incomes, slammed the decision. “Over our dead bodies,” Antonis Stamatopoulos, head of the Athens metro workers union, told SKAI radio. Bus workers, as well as those at the Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway (ISAP), said the would extend their work stoppage after 5 p.m. in solidarity with the metro staff.

Earlier representatives said that they would suspend their action if the government committed to maintaining the collective labor agreement, which expires on April 30, before negotiating a new deal.

On Wednesday, government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou warned that "if the instigators of the strike do not comply with the court's decisions by tomorrow (Thursday), they will have to face the legal consequences." Before his statement, and while responding to the possibility they might be ordered to return to work by the government, employees said that they are adamant in their position and will respond "with war to government's war". "A black-out will exist in public transport if the government orders us to return to work, and this is not a threat" said STASY president Christos Koukis.

A prosecutor is investigating the continuing strike ordered a preliminary investigation following reports that only a small percentage of staff is involved. First Instance Court chief prosecutor Panagiota Fakou will be verifying whether metro employees are still being paid normally for the days they have gone on strike, by using vacation time or calling in sick. She is also responsible for reviewing a court decision terming the strike illegal, to decide whether continuing the strike contravenes a court decision.

The board of rail transport organization STASY says it is determined to use its powers under the law to take action against transport employees, should they go ahead with their planned industrial action, in spite of such action being declared illegal by a fresh court ruling.

The STASY board said in an announcement that it "has exhausted all options for dialogue" with employees, and since the strike action has been judged illegal, it will take all legitimate action. It added the law stipulates conscription and even layoffs for staff continuing to strike.

In Greece the easiest thing in the world is to strike, taking part and organizing demonstrations and/or closing roads is simple because the land of democracy -unlike other areas in the world- still respects freedom of expression. But... When roudy unionists get involved your best bet is that it is politically motivated and doesn't really have a base for argument.

Political parties have educated these public sector unionists well.

The transport workers, for instance, who are now reacting negatively to a new wage payroll system should not really be complaining about getting the bitter end of the stick. For years, this sector enjoyed backdoor hirings, and most of the people that were employed here were totally unqualified.

Indeed those few were fired, but there are still many employees in this sector, as well as the wider public sector that were employed in the very same way thanks to the clientilism system that was set up by all of Greece's political parties with the PASOK party leading the pack. And in case HellasFrappe gets criticised for stigmatizing the socialists, we would just like to remind our readers that the majority of the unions have PASOK leadership. So if it quacks like a duck... bla bla bla its a duck!

All these people enjoyed unbelievable benefits all these years. Aside from their fixed salaries, who can forget the "sending a fax" benefit that some employees at the Public Power Corporation (DEH) used to receive, or how they used to calculate their time of work from the moment they left their house (in other words, if they were caught in traffic for two hours, or had a doctors appointment for three or four hours, this would be added to their payroll or counted as work time).

The transport workers were not an exception. They too enjoyed many benefits and the cutbacks that occurred over the last few years were not really on their direct salaries but rather on the benefits they received. This is the reason they are reacting strongly against the cutbacks today.

According to the General Accounting Office, the average monthly salary of a metro worker was 4,080 Euros, 3,080 Euros in the metro and tram workers were receiving 2,500 Euros. The workers on their part deny these figures and claim that their wages ranged between 1,800-2,500 Euros.

And what is more... they also want to "trick" the State into paying them for striking as well. Get a load of these figures as released by the government.

• On the first day of their strike (Thursday 17/1) out of 1,300 employees only 33% or 430 employees declared that they were striking, while the remaining 790 suddenly fell ill. Obviously this was done so that they can get paid while striking, and believe us folks... there is no other place in the world where this could happen but Greece.
• And it gets better. Only 20 or 3.94 percent of the tram workers who were striking on 18/1 out of a total 507 actually declared they were striking! About 467 phoned in sick, and the rest declared that they were taking time off.
• On 19/1: Out of 1,300 metro strikers, 210 phoned in sick and 1,010 massively decided to take a day off!
• On the fourth day, or on 20/1, 1,030 appeared sick again.
• And all this of course because these public sector workers want to be paid while striking!

One of the unionists, Mr. Stamatopoulos (formerly part of the PASOK party and now a member of ANTARSYA) said earlier in the week that commuters might have some difficulties until this issue is solved, but in the long-term people will thank him and the other workers for this. That indeed is a laugh.

The truth is that commuters would be happy if these people realized that all of Greek society has been victim to wage and pension cuts and that the industry which he represents is not an exception from the rest of society. Similar rhetoric has been echoed by other unionists. For example - "we strike to reduce the ticket to 1 Euro." but at the same time they don't want the State to reduce their salaries to maintain that ticket at less than 1 Euro. Which kind of doesn't make sense.

Our opinion here at HellasFrappe is simple. We pay taxes to have health care, public sector services and reliable transportation, but are forced to go to private doctors and use taxi cabs in order to go about our daily business because of all these obviously politically driven strikes which are totally unnecessary. No one is saying that these pay cuts are pleasant, but no one can be excluded from doing his and her part in Greece's recovery.

And finally, if they are so unhappy with the conditions at their work, then why not quit and try their luck in the private sector? Do they actually have the b***lls to even try? Not on your life when they can have it so good!