The 24-hour strike of the temporary employees at the Ministry of Culture continues second week in a row. Yesterday permanent employees joined their colleagues to support them and closed major museums and archeological sites in the country till 12’oclock at noon. The strike involved archaeologists, restorers, technicians, security guards, receptionists and labourers.
The employees of the ministry face with redundancies, lack of funding and lack of staff. "Currently the administration experiences serious difficulties because many employees were retired after the adoption of the new social security law and secondly because of the lack of staff to work on programs under the National Strategic Framework," said Despina Kutsumba, archeologist and member of the administrative council of the Staff Federation at the Ministry of Culture and member of the general council of civil servants trade union ADEDY.
Delay in recruitment of staff
According to her, the problem is that the Ministry does not appoint employees even though 194 guards and 55 archaeologists and restorers were approved in 2009 to be employed permanently. They are still waiting their appointments. While they are waiting to sign their contracts, the Ministry employs temporary people who are fired within few months!
350 people out of work at the end of the month
The second reason for the strike is that the temporary contracts of 350 employees who have been working for the Ministry between 15 and 18 years expire on October 31 and they no longer will be entitled to work as civil servants in Greek culture preservation. Most of these 350 people are guards of museums and archaeological sites. This will affect the opening hours of the archaeological sites such as the Acropolis, which will have to work until 3:00 pm and not to 6 pm.
"The employees who will be fired are aged between 45 and 50 years and a competition for their job positions is already announced. They have no chance on the labour market but the sites themselves will also loose because their experience is invaluable," said Lena Panu who is a guard at the National Archaeological Museum, the mother of two children and is waiting to be dismissed at the end of the month. She belongs to another group of employees - those who have won the last year’s competition but have not yet been appointed, so she is still hoping ...
24 months of work and then – new occupation
The third issue is the 24 months term which the Pavlopoulos presidential provision introduced in 2004. The provision has integrated the European directive according to which the employee must be permanently appointed after 24 months of service but the provision was misinterpreted, i.e. no one can work more than 24 months. "This means that we employ archaeologists, restorers, guards, we train them to do the job, they sign three eight-month temporary contracts and then they are not allowed to take the same position," explained Ms. Kutsumba. "Or an archaeologist is doing research in a museum for an exhibition, do all the work and then, after 24 months, we have to fire this archeologist and employ another one. This is a serious social problem, because archaeologists and restorers can not work elsewhere but only at the Ministry of Culture. In practice, they study at least four years to work two years. They work as cleaners, guards. This is a problem for us, for the activities of the Ministry and especially for the programs in the national strategic framework, because they require specialization and it is a big problem if we have to change our personnel in every two years," adds the archaeologist. According to Mrs. Kutsumba, the problem is most serious in the remote areas of the country where there is huge unemployment.
Fast track and archaeological woes
The main demand of the staff of the Ministry of Culture is not to undermine the level through fast track laws or through the Ministry's attempts to convince people that cultural heritage is only a hobby for the rich or is tourism-oriented, says Despina Kutsumba. She also explained that policy in this case means to pay attention only to major museums and cultural sites while leaving the rest to their fate or looking at them as an obstacle to development.
Under fast track and the second memorandum signed, the Ministry of Culture wants to skip the permission issuance by the archaeological department to facilitate the entry of large investments over a certain amount that will open jobs for more than 200 people (but not permanent jobs), said Ms. Kutsumba. "In fact, the archaeological department puts obstacles on projects that do not lead to development, but are made to take the subsidies to vanish. There are investments that will leave behind damaged environment and unpaid staff although they seem significant... It happens very often – businessmen come and offer us projects that are useless and have no future but there is a subsidy and they want to get it leaving a dump behind. They do not care, but we are civil service and can not think on the basis of private interests," the archaeologist reveals the problem.
Unionists at the Ministry of Culture have not yet met the Minister Pavlos Geroulanos to present their demands and argue that there is no apparent interest in dialogue on political level. They themselves say they will continue the strike till October 31 - the last working day of 350 colleagues the contracts of which expire then. "It's not about contracts termination – actually we are talking about redundancies. When 350 people have been working so many years and at the end of the month they will be out of work – it is no time when you will find work elsewhere. Those 350 people we need will get out on the street unable to take care of their families. And it is tragedy to dismiss several hundreds people from the Ministry of Culture when you have 1 million unemployed in Greece."
The chairman of the union of temporary employees at the Ministry of Culture Nikos Hasomeris says there are "4,500 vacant jobs provided for permanent staff at the Ministry. Instead of appointing people permanently on these positions they hire temporarily employees to work, then sack them and employ others and fire them again and so ad infinitum. We want our colleagues who have at least ten years of work experience and cover areas that are necessary to remain at work, and to take some of these 4 500 positions. They are archaeologists, restorers, guards, night guards, receptionists, cleaners, workers, technicians, but the political leadership does not want to meet us."
"Can a person live under today's conditions even a month without money?! Those who were not paid 22 months are living with loans from relatives and friends, bank credits, or if they find some temporary work at a pace - they work as suppliers, waiters in cafes. There are people who live in rent, others have children, and there are people who come every day to protest but walking to save even the one euro for the ticket. So, we can not justify why we do strikes and occupations," says Nikos Hasomeris shortly before the announcement of the meeting point on October 28 - National Day of Greece, when archaeologists will continue their protest in front of the Acropolis at 10:30 am.
Strike in foreign eyes
While strikers protested outside the Ministry of Culture, the National Archaeological Museum opened its doors after 12 o’clock at noon to meet the first visitors for the day. "I'd be very disappointed if I’d come to see the museum closed. I visited Greece in 2004 before the Olympics when it was repaired and closed to visitors. And if it happened again, I would be low. But it is open! Otherwise, we are accustomed to strikes in France; this is our way of life. Now we are worried about how we will get home and whether the airport will be closed," says a tourist from France that came with her family to see one of the temples that keep the pride of Greece.
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