UK BANNED Press TV: A general strike
staged by workers in Greece in protest against harsh austerity measures
has brought the debt-hit country to a standstill.
The 24-hour walkout, organized by Greece's largest public and private sector unions on Wednesday, has closed schools and disrupted public transportations and flights.
Schoolteachers, doctors, municipal workers, train workers and bus
drivers have participated in the strike. Air traffic controllers have
also said they would not work between 1000 and 1300 GMT.
The strike comes a day after inspectors from the troika of European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) resumed their latest bailout review.
“Workers, pensioners and the unemployed are going through an endless nightmare,” port workers said in a statement, adding, “The government and the troika are destroying this country.”
According to Greek union officials, labor unions are concerned that Athens would have to impose fresh wage and pension cuts in a bid to meet its bailout targets in the coming years.
The unions are also opposed to planned job cuts in public sector and privatizations.
Greece has experienced six years of recession and repeated rounds of austerity measures, which have sent the country’s jobless rate to record high of more than 27 percent.
In October, Greece's President Karolos Papoulias warned against pressure from the international lenders to impose further austerity measures, saying, “They should not think that we may yield to blackmail. Greek people have never surrendered to blackmail.”
Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2008. The worsening debt crisis has forced EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, which have triggered incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.
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