Striking unions bring Greece to standstill

The Greek government has vowed to tackle industrial unrest that brought the nation to its knees on Wednesday, when a general strike paralyzed cities and drew thousands onto the streets in mass protests that coincided with the country unveiling its 2025 budget.

The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which has raised the minimum wage four times since coming to power in 2019, has vowed to do more and hike it again, from 830 euros ($873) a month to 950 euros.

The government has also increased pensions.

But workers want more and Wednesday's strike meant ships were unable to leave ports, government offices were closed, and public transport was parked as unions demanded not only better pay but action to address the country's cost-of-living crisis, its expensive housing, and rampant inflation.

Around 12,000 protesters marched through central Athens and 5,000 hit the streets of the country's second city, Thessaloniki.

The strike and protests were supported by unions representing firefighters, teachers, doctors, builders, transportation workers, and many others, in both the public and private sectors.

Stratis Dounias, a court employee who joined the march in Athens, told the Reuters news agency: "Each time we go to the supermarket and each time electricity bills land, we suffer small heart attacks. We want real measures against the high prices."

Many workers were angry the country's economy had apparently rebounded from the debt crisis that followed the 2008 financial crisis, but, amid bailouts by the European Union and others, wages had stayed low and the country's gross domestic product remained among the least impressive in the EU.

Mitsotakis said his government wants to deliver better wages and living standards but needs the EU to help by supplying it with cheaper electricity to power its factories.

His government said in its budget it expects economic growth next year of 2.3 percent, and additional spending of 1.1 billion euros on improving wages and pensions.

But the online Euronews site quoted Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the General Confederation of Workers of Greece, as saying workers need a 10-percent wage rise.

"We have no other way to cope with the high cost of living, other than with an increase to our income. But our incomes remain frozen in the bailout era," he said.

Analysts say the country's debt crisis and the bailouts that followed it were triggered by the free spending of governments of the past, and that nations and institutions that loaned the country money to address the crisis insisted on reforms of the country's public sector, its wages, and pensions that balanced the books but also led to increased poverty and unemployment, and resentment that triggered the current unrest.

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