ATHENS (AFP) — Thousands of Greek workers, journalists, civil engineers and other professionals demonstrated in Athens and Salonika on Wednesday in a general strike against a controversial pension reform that paralysed public services and badly disrupted transport across the country.
The conservative government says reform is imperative to save the retirement system from collapse, but both unions and white-collar guilds see a planned merger of funds as a threat to their hard-earned pension rights.
"The funds are built on workers' backs. We won't abandon them to plutocrats," shouted protesting workers in Athens, who denounced a round of dialogue the government had previously held with unions as a sham.
This is the third general strike on the issue since December.
Around 8,000 people joined a similar demonstration in Salonika where a group of protesters caused minor damage at five bank branches.
A number of Salonika shops also had their front windows pelted with garbage that abounds in the city's streets due to a two-week strike by collectors.
Thousands of tonnes of waste have accumulated in the streets of main cities and Greeks have endured another two weeks of rolling power cuts.
On Wednesday, over 60 international and domestic flights by national carrier Olympic Airlines had to be sidelined because of a four-hour stoppage by air traffic controllers.
Greece's second largest carrier Aegean said it would cancel 23 of its flights and modify another 28.
Overall, the strike kept ferries at port and paralysed nearly all intercity rail transport in addition to city buses, trams and trains.
It also shut down the public sector, banks, schools and courts as lawyers are also opposed to the reform.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has stated his intention to push forward regardless of political cost.
The reform bill is expected to pass a vote in parliament on Thursday, but the government's thin majority of 151 deputies in the 300-seat chamber has left the conservatives in a tight spot with a four-year term ahead of them.
Moreover, an opinion poll published on Wednesday found 71 percent of Greeks say they oppose the reform, with 76 percent accusing the government of misleading them.
"The Thursday vote is a test of the government's parliamentary coherence," political analyst and pollster Theo Livanios told AFP.
The government intends to merge 133 pension funds that cover more than 90 percent of salaried employees into 13 new groups in a bid to cut operating costs.
The new system also offers pension hikes to retiring workers who opt to stay in the workforce up to an extra three years.
"It is a positive first step, but we are still examining whether it can work on a macro-economic basis," said Dimitris Maroulis, a financial analyst at Alpha Bank.
Successive governments have talked about reforming pensions but few have attempted it due to the political cost at stake. The last major effort in 2001 was ditched amid fierce union protests.
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