Maravi

Greek unions to protest against PM's austerity plans

COMMENT - This is the second act of the neoliberal game. Act one was destroying the economy with debt. The second stage is to destroy the social safetynets, and make everyone completely dependent on the corporations - for their healthcare, for their pensions, and for their unemployment benefits (if any). The objective is to bury all the reforms that came out of the FDR era and the first Great Depression, which built the US middle class. They want to return to a from a 3-tier society (working class, middle class and the rich) to a 2-tier society (the working poor and the rich).

Greek unions to protest against PM's austerity plans
By BBC News
Sat 11 Sep. 2010, 14:40 CAT

The man who threw a shoe at the prime minister said he was not welcome in Salonica
Greek unions are planning mass protests in the city of Thessaloniki against the government's austerity programme.

The demonstrations are expected before a speech on the economy by Prime Minister George Papandreou, who is attending the city's trade fair.

On Friday, the government said there would be further austerity measures, in addition to the cuts and higher taxes that have already been announced.

Earlier, three people were held after a shoe was thrown at Mr Papandreou.

However, the projectile - launched by Dr Stergios Prapavezis, a respected local cancer specialist - landed wide of its target.

Before the incident, Dr Prapavezis told the BBC that the prime minister was not welcome in the northern region because he had surrendered Greece's sovereignty and subjected ordinary people to poverty.

The police also detained his 15-year-old daughter and Stavros Vitalis, a farmer with whom he set up a protest movement called the Patriotic Front.

The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Thessaloniki says that with 3,000 police patrolling the city's streets, the fact that a single shoe thrower got so close to the prime minister will be a source of major embarrassment.
Reform programme

Officials said the security forces had been deployed to maintain order during the three demonstrations on Saturday afternoon.

The country's trade unions said they believed the government wanted to "overthrow" workers' rights, on top of cutting public sector wages and pensions.

The centre-left government imposed a tough austerity programme in May in return for a 110bn-euro ($140bn; £91bn) bail-out from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union that helped it stave off bankruptcy.

On Friday evening, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said it was on track to reduce its budget deficit from 13.6% of GDP in 2009 to 8.1% this year, and pledged to maintain the pace.

"We will continue as we started," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

"However, several more months must pass before we can convincingly show that what has been done was not a flash in the pan, and that we won't fall to pieces at the first sign of hardship."

Mr Papaconstantinou said he planned to overhaul several state-run corporations including the Greek Railway Company, which has 10.7bn euros of debts.

"As a society, we have shown that we understand the problem," he said.

The government also wanted to introduce reforms in the tourism, education, agriculture and energy sectors in the coming year, he added.

Official figures published earlier this week showed the contraction of the Greek economy was accelerating. It is expected to shrink by 4% this year.

Inflation has also reached 5.5% - its highest level in more than a decade - and more than half a million people were officially out of work in June.

Labels: GREAT DEPRESSION II, NEOLIBERALISM

posted by MrK @ 6:10 PM