Galery

1

Victoria Mindova

The general federation of electricity workers cut the electricity of 16 power production plants and 33 Athenian neighbourhoods will be out of power for an hour as of Monday. These are the consequences of the strike of the workers in the Greek electricity company who decided to proceed from threats to action. The trade union of the Greek electricity company DEI intensified its protests to prevent the privatization of part of the company. The workers there do not want the government to keep its promise stated in the mid-term recovery plan, which says that 17% of the Greek electricity company will be privatized by the end of next year. GRReporter contacted the deputy chairman of the trade union Konstantinos Koutsodimas to explain to the readers why the guests and citizens of Greece will experience short-term and unexpected blackouts this summer.

What are your demands that make you strike and stop the power supply in the country?

We are not fighting for demands or desires, nor are we seeking salaries increase or something like that. We want the government to give us valid reasons to explain why it wants to sell just that public enterprise. It is profitable and is the largest industrial enterprise in the country. We want at least three or four arguments to be provided to explain the necessity of the planned privatization. This is not happening so far because there are no such good reasons. The decision for the privatization has been taken but it is not founded. There is neither evidence, nor guarantee that the electricity will become more inexpensive or that there will be no redundancies.

Yes, but the privatization is part of the government's rescue plan.

The government follows that policy because it wants to give at least 40% of the power production to private companies. This is exactly the problem. The private owners do not want to make large investments and therefore, the government wants to sell a piece of the national electricity company within a supposed liberalization.

So, do you think that the liberalization of the electricity market is not necessary?

I would like to tell you that the electricity market has been liberalized already. There are five competitive companies operating on the market already that are producing and selling electricity. There are also 15 other private companies operating on the retail distribution market. Therefore, it could not be said that the electricity market is closed or private companies and interests has no access to it. We believe that the arguments presented by the government are false and they do not show the real intent of the government. The game with the energy market liberalization is to the detriment of the Greek electricity company and this is what we are trying to change now. With the help of Greek consumers and public support we will be able to prevent the sale of this state property and will eventually have a positive result.

You met with both the new Minister of Finance Evangelos Venizelos and the Minister of Environment and Energy George Papaconstantinou after the government officials have been changed. What were your impressions of these meetings and could an option in the middle be found?

The two meetings we held with the new ministers have not resulted in anything different to make us change the strikes program of the movement. So, we started the 48-hour rolling strikes yesterday evening. We believe that due to the pressure the planned strikes exercise there will be a result on Wednesday or Thursday and the government will be more open to a dialogue. We expect to have another meeting with the Minister of Finance Evangelos Velizelos.

I would like to ask you whether you are worried by the fact that instead of supporting you, the society will turn against your requests after the power supply cuts in the regions start.

The government is trying to transfer its responsibility for its inactivity on us in various ways and to present us as people of no sense of social commitment and responsibility. All citizens and small entrepreneurs who are willing to blame us for the power cuts should first ask what the reason for that is and to address both the government and the management of DEI.

It is our duty as a trade union and workers too to protect the interests and the company. Each strike has its consequences and there will be short power cuts in this case. As in any other case, there are some consequences when different social groups strike. No matter what people defend their rights, whether they are taxi drivers or drivers of tankers or railway workers, there will always be some minor impacts on society. In any case, we would like to apologize to the Greek consumer for any inconvenience our strike can cause.

If the government decides not to yield to your requests, despite the active strike you have already started, what would you do? I mean, do you have any additional asset in addition to gradually cutting the power in order your voice to be heard?

The only weapons we have are the strike actions and the public support, and the commitment of institutional structures. This gives us courage. The government should understand that the workers' patience is wearing thin due to the restrictions imposed by the mid-term program and the high taxes. At the same time, it aims to further reduce the salaries and pensions of people. We rebel against that.

So, you strike not only against privatization, but also against the reduction of salaries in the sector, right?