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Kindergarten teachers and staff will go on a four-day strike from tomorrow. According to a provision presented to the Parliament, the working hours of all the staff at town halls and municipalities extends from 37.5 hours per week to 40 hours, while for teachers and other staff of kindergartens the extension is ten hours a week from 30 to 40.

Around 12,000 teachers, cooks, drivers working in kindergartens in Greece will stop work tomorrow from 12 at noon to 4:00 pm and will hold a full-day strike from Monday until Wednesday. On Wednesday, they will join the protest rally organised by the Federation of Community and Municipal Workers against the extension of their working hours. The rally will begin at 11:00 am on Karaiskaki Square and will turn into a demonstration at the Ministry of the Interior.

Kindergarten teachers protest against the extension of their working hours with ten hours, because they would not be able to perform their duties properly under their working conditions. Currently, many public kindergartens in Greece are taking care of more children than a teacher should be responsible for and in many cases a teacher cares for more than 30 children.

"The extension of the working hours is shocking and it does not take into consideration the nature of work in kindergartens. The number of children in state kindergartens has increased now because the parents can not afford to pay for the private kindergartens and a teacher takes care of 30-35 children. The extension from six to eight hours daily is significant," said Ioannis Tsounis - a member of the executive committee of the Federation of Community and Municipal Workers. A large percentage of the employees have temporary contracts for 8 or 10 months and most of them have not been paid the last three months, said Tsounis for grreporter.info.

The other problem is that the kindergarten staff is insufficient, because the contracts of some of the employees have expired and 20% -30% of them have not been renewed, and other employees have submitted their documents for retirement after the adoption of the law on the retirement age, said Dimitris Birbas from the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities in Greece. In the mean time, the reform in the town halls under the Kalikratis plan is running and the law on merger of schools and kindergartens entered into force, which hinders the collection of clear data on the current situation, not only for kindergartens. Therefore, the available data for the staff, the number of kindergartens and the needs would be clear at the end of the year. Currently, according to 2008 data and rough estimates of the current situation 1,792 kindergartens are operating in Greece, employing around 11,000 to 12,000 people and taking care of around 60,000 to 70,000 children, said Dimitris Birbas.