In Greece, this Wednesday, April 17, a 24-hour strike in the private sector, which particularly affects public transport, is slowing down the country. Employees and unions are mainly demanding salary increases to cope with the high cost of living. The strikers justify their movement in particular because of inflation, which particularly affects rents and food.
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With our correspondent in Athens, Joel Bronner
If traffic jams increased this Wednesday in the center of Athens, it is because there are many individual cars on the roads. This is due to the absence – or extremely reduced presence – of public transport: metros, buses, trams and taxis included. For their part, boats also remained at docks across the country and trains did not leave the stations.
“ The message is clear. Workers can’t make ends meet with rock-bottom wages and skyrocketing prices “. This is how the General Confederation of Greek Workers, the largest union in the private sector, justified this 24-hour strike.
Salaries still low in the face of rising rents
The Greek population has been permanently impoverished by a decade of economic crisis, which notably saw wage levels collapse. This month – and for the fourth time in five years – Greece this time slightly raised the minimum level of its gross monthly salary, which now reaches 830 euros.
An increase that the striking unions however consider insufficient due, among other things, to food inflation and the surge in rental prices. In the center of Athens, between 2019 and 2021, rents increased by almost 30%, for example, and the trend is still upwards.
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