Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Humiliated Greek Unions

The marxist Greek government sector employee unions must feel pretty humiliated today. Here they launch two full day strikes against the governments plans to reduce their bonuses and freeze their base salaries. And what do they have to show for it? Well, they'll clearly lose the pay they would have received if they had worked on those days. And now they are also told that the government after these two strikes will cut their pay even more.

They may strike one or two more days, but the government will likely again respond by ignoring them or even respond with yet further reductions in their pay (in addition to the pay cuts that the strikes directly inflict upon them). With the bond market and other EU leaders putting strong pressure on the government´and with a majority of Greeks supporting the austerity plan, the government have no reason to give in to their demands. All further strikes will do is ensure that the striking workers will lose yet more pay.