1.6 Million Greeks Strike Over Wages
More than 1.6 million workers went on strike throughout Greece on Tuesday for higher wages and a change in government income curbs, labor union officials said.
All domestic flights of Olympic Airways were canceled, bus and rail services were curtailed and even the yellow Athens taxis were absent from the capital’s streets.
Those cabs that ventured out were attacked and their windows smashed, witnesses said.
“We reckon the strike was very successful. We had about 80% support from the work force,” said one official of the Athens Labor Center, which controls many unions.
About 40,000 strikers gathered in a main Athens square and were addressed by speakers claiming that Socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou was carrying out right-wing policies and supporting industrialists at the cost of workers.
Papandreou has promised that a two-year-old wage freeze will be relaxed from Jan. 1, but union offials said that expected wage rises of at least 4% will fall far short of the current inflation figure of about 16%.
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