General strike in public and private sectors over new Budget

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Greece's GSEE and ADEDY trade union confederations called a 24-hour nationwide general strike on 15 December 1998, so that workers in the public and private sectors could express their opposition to government policy, and put forward their demands in view of the new Budget, which was due to be voted on in Parliament.

In official statements announcing a 24-hour nationwide general strike for 15 December 1998, both the Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY) and the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) cited taxation issues, incomes policy and social expenditure as the strike's basic demands. The trade union confederations called the action to coincide with the parliamentary vote on the 1999 state Budget, enabling public and private sector workers to both demonstrate opposition to overall government policy, and press union demands on the Budget (GR9810195F).

As regards taxes, GSEE is demanding fairer tax regulations and tax cuts for wage-earners and pensioners, and is asking the government to implement a number of measures to which it has committed itself:

• an increase in tax-exempt income for wage-earners and pensioners to an amount equal to the annual wages of an unskilled worker (about GRD 2 million),

• indexation of the tax scale, and

• sliding scale of taxes.

On incomes policy, GSEE is demanding that the rationale of austerity be abandoned and that the government abide by its announced intention to protect and increase workers' real incomes. According to GSEE, the December strike was designed to be a message to all sides that workers will further their pay demands in all branches and companies through collective bargaining. Their minimum demand will be the rates set out in the two-year National General Collective Labour Agreement signed by GSEE for 1998 and 1999 (GR9805171N). As concerns social expenditure, GSEE is demanding that outlays be increased to correspond to the need to pursue an effective social policy, mainly with regard to measures concerning unemployed people and the group in a socially weaker position.

ADEDY' s framework of demands is focused on incomes policy. In its strike announcement, ADEDY states that the 1999 Budget has been determined solely by the EMU convergence programme of the Greek economy to achieve nominal indices, relying for its revenues on taxes paid by wage-earners and pensioners, and ignoring heightened social problems. ADEDY claims that, instead of paying a corrective amount to offset lower wages in 1998 brought about both by incomes policy and high taxation, the government - with its announced 2% incomes policy and the budget it has presented and is pushing for adoption - is shifting the whole burden of its anti-inflationary policy onto the backs of the workers and is causing public sector workers to suffer a loss of income for the second year running.