Greece hit by general strike as thousands of workers protest over the high cost of living

By ELENA BECATOROS and DEREK GATOPOULOS The Associated Press

Commuters stand outside the closed main metro Syntagma station, during a nationwide general strike organized by private and public sector unions demanding for better wages, in Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Thanassis Stavrakis]

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Thousands of workers marched through the Greek capital Athens on Wednesday as part of a 24-hour general strike called by labor unions to protest the rising cost of living and timed to coincide with the government submitting the 2025 budget to Parliament.

Public and private sector workers walked off the job as part of the labor action that disrupted public transport and left ferries connecting the Greek islands with the mainland tied up in port.

Medical staff at state-run hospitals and teachers were among those who joined the strike, which was called by labor unions to protest the high cost of living and demand collective wage agreements that were scaled back during Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis that began in 2010.

Around 12,000 protesters marched through central Athens, while another 5,000 demonstrated in the northern city of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city.

“We want to showcase the rage and resentment of salaried employees for what is happening to their income,” said Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the General Confederation of Workers of Greece, the umbrella union representing private sector workers.

Seasonal firefighter Dimitris Tsolakoudis protests with his four kids and his wife, left, during a nationwide general strike organized by private and public sector unions demanding for better wages, in Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Thanassis Stavrakis

“We have no other way to be able 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.

Greece’s financial crisis saw a quarter of the country’s economy wiped out after decades of profligate spending left it locked out of international bond markets. Successive international bailouts came on condition the country implement deeply unpopular reforms that included pension and wage cuts and saw poverty and unemployment rates spiral.

Greece has since returned to healthy growth and recently achieved investment-grade status again, but it still retains the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the European Union.

“Greece needs a pay rise,” Esther Lynch, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, said Tuesday ahead of the strike. She said she was in Athens “to bring the solidarity greetings from 45 million workers and their trade unions from around Europe.”

The European confederation supports “all workers in Greece who are going to come out to demand that pay rise and to demand the genuinely binding collecting agreement to guarantee a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” she said.

Unions have criticized the center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for failing to tackle inflation and housing policies, which have eroded workers’ living standards.

Journalists at Greek media outlets held their own 24-hour strike in support on Tuesday, pulling all news broadcasts off the air for the day so they could cover Wednesday’s general strike.