Greek unions plan new strikes next week

GREEK labour unions have threatened further strikes next week, a day after parliament approved new harsh cutbacks to secure international loans, despite protests and riots that left one man dead and about 200 injured.
...Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary-general of the Adedy public servants' union, insisted the new law "will not be implemented" and accused the Socialists of turning a blind eye to the toll these measures would take on workers.

"This government has ignored the popular uprising by approving this terrible law," Iliopoulos said.
"Our answer is: get out as fast as you can, there is no place for you in Greece any longer."

"We are planning new strikes next week," he added.

More than 150,000 people took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday and yesterday during a two-day national strike against the cutbacks, which follow 20 months of deeply resented austerity moves. Police arrested about 20 people following extensive rioting on both days.
But yesterday's vote further weakened Prime Minister George Papandreou's government, after a former labour minister who objected to reducing workers' bargaining rights was expelled from the party. The Socialists now control 153 of parliament's 300 seats, down from 160 after their election victory two years ago.
But the new cutbacks have caused deep anger in a country struggling in a third year of recession with record unemployment, which reached 16.5 per cent in July.
Ferries were confined to port for a fifth straight day in a strike that is already causing shortages in the country's islands, and is set to continue until early Sunday.

Municipal employees, state nurses and prison guards also walked off the job today. Mounds of rotting rubbish - uncollected for nearly three weeks - continue to pile up on the streets of Athens.

Greek unions held a small march today in central Athens to protest at the death of a 53-year-old construction worker who suffered a heart attack after attending yesterday's rally, which saw savage clashes between peaceful union protesters and anarchists armed with firebombs and stones.

The fighting raised the possibility of a vendetta between the two groups.

Early today, three Communist party offices were firebombed in the northern city of Thessaloniki.