Greek strikes halt ships, planes and trains
Business
The government raised monthly minimum pay by 35% to 880 euros, but still it's hard to make ends meet
ATHENS (Reuters) – A strike by Greek workers on Wednesday left ferries docked at ports, flights to and from the country grounded and trains at a standstill, with Greece's largest trade unions demanding higher wages to cope with rising living costs.
Greece has emerged from a 2009-2018 debt crisis which saw rolling cuts in wages and pensions in turn for bailouts worth some 290 billion euros and economic growth, seen at a 2.3% this year, has outpaced other eurozone economies.
Tapping on the country's progress, the conservative government has increased the monthly minimum wage by a cumulative 35% to 880 euros. But many households still struggle to make ends meet amid rising food, power and housing costs, the labour unions say.
"Prices have gone that high that we're buying fewer goods by 10% compared to 2019," GSEE, which represents more than 2 million private workers, said in a statement. "We're striking for the obvious. Pay rises and collective labour contracts now!"
The one-day strike halted trains across the country, while bus and metro workers in Athens held work stoppages.
Greece's minimum salary in terms of purchasing power was among the lowest in the European Union in January, behind Portugal and Lithuania, data from EU's statistics office Eurostat showed. At 1,342 euros a month, the average salary still stands 10% lower than in 2010, when the financial crisis broke out, data from the Greek labour ministry shows.
The government has promised to raise the minimum wage further to 950 euros as it targets an average monthly salary of 1,500 euros, closer to the EU average. But monthly expenses for food, utilities and housing have been growing fast, public sector workers say, demanding the immediate reinstatement of annual bonuses scrapped in the past decade.
The government has rejected their demand, citing fiscal restrictions.
