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ATHENS: Tens of thousands of Greeks demonstrated in Athens and other cities on Thursday in the second general strike this month against a debt-dictated pension reform and government spending cuts.
About 17,000 people demonstrated in the capital and around 5,000 more marched in second city Thessaloniki, according to police estimates, calling on the Socialist government to drop a controversial pension reform and pay cuts.
The demonstrations called by Greece's main unions and the communist workers' syndicate shut down the centre of Athens for the second time this month in a movement against tough fiscal measures imposed to clinch a vital EU-IMF loan.
"These measures take us 150 years back," read a banner borne by protesters.
"We want the government to take back these measures which freeze our pay rises and force us to stay longer in the workforce," said Maria Grigoropoulou, a cosmetics store employee.
"We will continue our struggle and we will not back down," she told AFP.
More than 1,700 extra police were ordered into central Athens as authorities sought to avoid a repeat of troubles that have erupted during the last strikes, including a May 5 petrol bomb attack on a bank that killed three employees.
Police on Thursday preventively detained nearly 100 people on the sidelines of the Athens protest, which brought all public transport to a halt.
"We are here to send a strong message to the government, the Brussels directorate, the IMF and all those pencil-pushers who are targeting the social, labour, pension and economic rights of employees," Stathis Anestis, a leading member of the General Confederation of Workers (GSEE), said in a speech to protesters.
The strike is the fourth called by unions since February and the second this month against wage and pension cuts and higher indirect taxes ordered by the government.
Business lobby groups have appealed to labour organisations to hold back on workforce disruptions to let the recession-hit economy get back on its feet.
Greek stocks on Thursday closed with a 3.32-percent loss with the Athens stock exchange general index dropping to 1,582.22 points, its lowest since March 2009, tracking heavy losses elsewhere in Europe.
The main labour federations, the GSEE with one million members, and ADEDY which numbers 370,000, called the strike against the shock measures ordered by the government which needed a 110 billion euro rescue from the European Union and International Monetary Fund to avoid a debt default.
The biggest Greek lender, National Bank of Greece, said the country could rake nine billion extra euros into the state coffers simply by slapping tighter tax rules on undeclared personal income estimated at 50 billion euros a year.
Ditching tax breaks and clamping down on chronic tax evasion would generate enough revenue to make up for a third of the huge reduction Athens is trying to make in its budget shortfall, the bank said in a study.
The Athens subway, bus and trolleybus system all came to a halt on Thursday, producing giant traffic jams in the city. In the main port of Piraeus, ferries and other boats were all tied up in the harbour.
International flights were not affected as air traffic controllers decided not to strike, so as not to worsen the impact on the key tourism industry.
But Olympic Air cancelled at least 15 internal flights because civil aviation workers joined the stoppage at smaller local airports.
And three cruise ships carrying a combined 7,280 passengers were shut out of Piraeus and forced to use other harbours because of the strike, the semi-state Athens News Agency reported.
Some schools were open and the education ministry maintained national examinations for high school students. Some private banks in Athens opened as well despite a call by the main bank workers' union, OTOE, to join the strike.
The minimum retirement age is to be increased and pensions reduced under the proposals which need a final vote in parliament later this month. - AFP/de
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