GREECE will grind to a standstill on Thursday during a nationwide public-sector strike against attacks on pensions and workers’ & citizens’ rights.

Civil Service unions have called strike action over the lack of protective measures in schools and workplaces and are demanding a mass recruitment drive for the health sector. Meanwhile, transport workers want their employers to be required to provide and pay for Covid-19 tests.

Many intensive care units, particularly in northern Greece where the outbreak has been most severe, are near or at capacity. Health authorities have appropriated two private clinics in the northern city of Thessaloniki and their staff to be used for coronavirus patients.

But the Communist Party of Greece demands the immediate requisition of surgeries, private intensive care beds and diagnostic centres and the reopening of public hospitals shuttered in recent years because of EU-imposed spending cuts.

It has also called for exemptions from utility charges for water, gas, electricity and internet for the duration of lockdown restrictions.

Airlines have cancelled or rescheduled flights while ferry services between the Greek islands were also set to be disrupted. 

Communist-affiliated trade union federation PAME said the government was exploiting the coronavirus crisis to launch further attacks on “our lives, our health and our rights.

“PAME calls upon all trade unions to shoulder the burden of responding to government and employers. No-one should be left out of this struggle. 

“We must not let the working class be overwhelmed by fear, intimidation and pessimism. The message of the strike must reach everywhere, every workplace!”

Bills being pursued by the Greek government include deregulation of Sunday trading, an increase in maximum working hours and a transition from a collective pensions system to individualised pension pots invested by corporate funds.

Unions say this will mean workers either have to pay more to cover their current pensions and those being paid out to existing pensioners (whose pensions are paid from current contributions) or take a significant cut to their pensions.

Other laws remove the protection of citizens’ homes from bankruptcy proceedings, meaning they would be included in forced auctions of assets in cases of bankruptcy.