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| ERT logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Employees of Greece's state broadcasting station ERT remained in the courtyard of the building on Tuesday night in protest to the closing of the state public television network. More than 5,000 people gathered around the premises of ERT and basically refused to leave the premises. Shortly after 3:00 am on Wednesday the President of ERT advised all concerned to evacuate the building, because it is against the law to occupy a state building and as such anyone doing so would immediately be arrested.
So the protests moved outdoors, and the smaller parties who oppose the government took good advantage of the situation. At the same time, ERT journalists are still putting programs on air via digital frequencies and the Internet. And to top off the propaganda, various leftist parties, as well as state unions, joined the protests and elevated banners and flags slamming the government's decision.
For instance, Greece's POESY media union accused the government of sacrificing the broadcaster to appease its creditors. In a statement it said that bailout creditors are demanding civil service layoffs and the government, in order to meet its obligations toward foreign monitors, is prepared to sacrifice the public broadcasting corporation.
And if that wasn't enough, Greece's largest unions, the GSEE and the civil servants' ADEDY, began emergency meetings to decide on likely strikes in response to the ERT developments.
Even journalist unions called a 24-hour strike, halting private television news programs.
And we here at HellasFrappe ask: Have all the above organizations reacted in the same way to the well over 1.5 million Greek citizens who lost their jobs in the private sector? Did they react so strongly to the hundreds of thousands of private companies that have closed down over the past three years? OBVIOUSLY NOT.
Although the government's decision was criticized (by all those who for years have been living shamelessly off the backs of Greek taxpayers) the fact that the government chose to shut down ERT and then relaunch a new company, instead of trimming the existing one down, only proves how difficult it actually is to lay off public sector workers in Greece. This is even in cases where inefficiency and waste are MORE than evident!
Indeed, many lies and much propaganda has circulated since Tuesday's decision about the reasons behind the closure of ERT, both nationally and especially globally, but the truth is that ERT has not really shut down. It is only going to be non operational for a mere THREE months but of course both the domestic and global media are omitting to note this. The government's aim was never to shut down the public broadcasting company, but to relaunch a slimmed-down station with less workers.
The government spokesman on Tuesday described ERT as a "haven of waste" and said its 2,500 employees would be compensated and the company would reopen "as soon as possible" with a smaller workforce. (And even though they will be fully compensated, they still want to remain glued to a system that dropped Greece to its knees.)
"ERT is a typical example of unique lack of transparency and incredible waste. And that ends today," he said. "It costs three to seven times as much as other TV stations and four to six times the personnel - for a very small viewership, about half that of an average private station."
It is the first case of mass public sector layoffs in the recession-mired country, which has pledged to cut 15,000 state jobs by 2015 as part of its bailout commitments.
Later on Wednesday, the former workers of ERT issued a statement calling on all Greek citizens to support them in their protest. So far Greek citizens are quite indifferent to their call since it was well known for years that ERT was nothing more than a money pit for taxpayer's euros! In fact even Reuters said in one report on Wednesday that many Greek citizens have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors.
Speaking of the State, the other two leaders of the ruling coalition (or PASOK's Evangelos Venizelos and DIMAR's Fotis Kouvelis) said that they were against the closure of the public network, but it looks like they too will conform with the decision because the only thing they fear is elections. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and the New Democracy party know this too well, and if Kouvelis and Venizelos do not support this extremely necessary, and bold decision, then the only thing left is to head for national elections. Obviously they do not want this, so it is expected that Samaras will win in the end.
The executive order to shut it down must be ratified by parliament within three months but cannot be approved without backing from the minority coalition MPs.
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