Strikes in Greece caused transport chaos and slowed hospital care and shipping on Friday as thousands of workers protested against changes to a 36-year-old industrial action law demanded by the country's creditors. Some 9,000 people demonstrated in the city centre against the overhaul, part of a multi-purpose bill that will be voted on in parliament on Monday.
At the end of the protest, police fired a burst of tear gas to repel a small group of demonstrators that tried to enter parliament. Additional strikes and protests will be held on Monday. Sailors and hospital doctors participated in the walkout, as did staff at the Athens metro, causing huge traffic jams in the capital as commuters used their cars instead.
"Hands off strikes," the protesters chanted. Leading union GSEE said the bill - demanded by the country's creditors - "deals a killing blow to workers, pensioners and the unemployed... effectively eliminating even constitutionally safeguarded rights such as the right to strike."
The amendment to a 1982 law sets a higher worker participation requirement for strikes to be decided at primary union assemblies. The participation threshold is raised to at least 50 percent of paying union members, from as low as 20 percent currently.
GSEE says the change will affect "99 percent of future strikes", though there is speculation that unions may find ways to bypass the new rules, as they have done with prior attempts to limit strikes. Around 50 general strikes have been held since the start of the Greek economic crisis in 2010.
The bill also controversially moves property foreclosures online, after successive protests by anti-austerity groups targeting notaries inside courthouses. Greece expects to draw 4.5 billion euros from its current bailout package after fulfilling its latest reform requirements. The bailout agreement expires in August, whereupon Greece intends to finance its borrowing without a safety net for the first time in nine years.
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