MORE than 1,000 people marched through central Athens today as civil servants all across Greece staged a 24-hour strike in protest against the government’s austerity measures.

The country’s largest public-sector union, the Civil Servants Confederation (Adedy), organised today’s action, the first major strike since Greece left the bailout programme in August, to demand the Syriza government ends its austerity programme and the public-sector pay freeze.

“We demand the pay freeze be rescinded, a 2-3 per cent increase (in salaries) to end 10 years of cutbacks and for 13th and 14th salaries to be restored,” Adedy chairman Ioannis Paidas said, in reference to the annual bonuses slashed by then ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement government in 2010.

“Since [Prime Minister Alexis] Tsipras says the country is returning to normal, we want decent salary increases.”

The European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund’s bailout obliterated the country’s economy, which shrunk by a quarter, and saw unemployment rise to 28 per cent.

“We're seeking for them to give back all that they stole from us during the years of the bailouts,” said Argyri Erondokrytou, a 31-year-old doctor at a public hospital in Athens.

“It is a strike that demands from this government that its promises that we have exited the bailouts will not be only in words, but will also be in material things.”