AP Features, November 21st, 2007
A wave of strikes against social security reforms could echo ongoing worker unrest in France and pose a stiff challenge to a Greek government re-elected just two months ago.
Medical personnel at the country's social security foundation launched a two-day strike Wednesday, as did employees at private Alpha Bank. The powerful journalists' union will strike on Nov. 27 — disrupting newspaper production, public TV news broadcasts and Internet news sites — and will join a 24-hour general strike on Dec. 12.
Unions are protesting pension reform plans they say will raise retirement ages while cutting benefits to millions of future retirees. Some say that looming Greek actions reflect ongoing strikes in France, which have crippled transport and other public services for more than a week in the first major test of President Nicolas Sarkozy's reformist agenda.
"Workers and retirees are following our French comrades ... who are defending their social security system," Yiannis Panagopoulos, whose private sector umbrella union, GSEE, has refused to join a dialogue on pension reform, said last week. "That is what will happen in Greece."
The strikes follow the presentation Tuesday of the 2008 budget, which envisions controlled public spending, a further lowering of the deficit and higher tax receipts.
Labor Minister Vassilis Magginas unveiled proposals last week to streamline the country's creaking pension system, currently fragmented into over 100 different funds, into up to eight broad-based funds and 10 supplementary ones in an effort to cut waste and avert future system collapse.
The government expects pension outlays to rise from 12 percent of the budget now to 25 percent by mid-century.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' conservatives' reduced majority of 152 seats in the 300-member parliament could be in jeopardy if the pension debate turns into confrontation. The Socialists and smaller opposition parties have bitterly criticized the plans while dismissing the government's attempts at dialogue as a charade.
Whereas the previous general strike was in protest over a bond scandal and drew a poor turnout, the stakes this time — potentially affecting most of the country's aging population — are far higher.
The government will finalize its pension plans early next year, and unions already warn of a fresh wave of protests.
