Railway workers went on a protest meeting and required the government to answer why the activities of projects, which should have been completed to 2004, subsidized with investments of 9 billion have stopped and who has spent so much money?
Railway workers announced a 24-hour strike yesterday which the government said is illegal. However, trains in Greece stopped moving. The reason for the strike is a bill that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport has proposed. According to the bill, two thirds of the state railway lines will be cut because they are not profitable. Around 2500 people of the staff most of which will retire after a few years will be moved to other offices. The last proposal is that most of the property of the state railways will be rented or sold.
Railway workers disagree with the bill. They have their proposals. The union leaders informed the employees of the ticket box offices a few days of not to sell tickets for September 14 in order to avoid angry passengers who failed to travel because of the strike.
So, railway workers from all over Greece - from Kalamata to Alexandroupoli, gathered in front of the central offices of the state railways on the central street of the capital Karolu at noon. They went on a protest march to the Ministry of Finance. The protesters walked from Omonya Square to the Stadiu Blvd stopping the traffic in downtown Athens while they came to the Ministry of Finance on Syntagma Square to file their claims.
"The Communist Party of Greece supports the struggle of railway workers. The privatization policy of public services and benefits, and transport leads to the dismissal of 2500 employees, it leads to increased ticket prices, to decline of railway workers life standart. Transport is limited, minimized and this will make it more expensive. These are the results of the privatization processes that began 15 years ago... We believe that the railways are a means of transport that saves energy, does not harm the environment and is among the safest traveling means, but unfortunately it will become a means that does not offer any adequate security neither for workers, nor for passengers," said the parliamentary representative of the Communist Party Spiros Halvadzis.
Mr. Halvadzis stated that the governments of New Democracy and PASOK are greatly responsible for the state of the railways because "they did not ensured the railway budget, but pushed it to draw bank loans at high interest rates that led to this vicious circle of debt."
For his part, the chairman of the union of railway workers Nikolaos Kyutsukis said that railway workers will not give up and will protest against the bill despite the fact that the strike was declared illegal. "We declare we are determined to keep the railways state and public. We will not allow our labour relations and our rights to return to the Middle Ages and to receive wages equal to the Chinese’s." Mr. Kyutsukis added that "railway workers are determined to maintain the security of passengers and their colleagues ..." He asked the government to sit and "start a dialogue with the railway workers from scratch, without having previously taken decisions." The union of railway workers will decide on a extraordinary meeting how they will continue their protest and what position to take on the government politics.
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