|
|
|
Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-11-28
CONTENTS
[01] Journalists strike over planned pension fund merger
[01] Journalists strike over planned pension fund merger
Journalists in Greece responded with a 24-hour nationwide strike
Tuesday to the government's proposal to merge their pension fund with
those of medical doctors, engineers and lawyers to form a "scientists'
fund" within the framework of its plans to reform the country's ailing
social security system. Journalists protested by holding a rally and a
march of unprecedented size. Roughly 2,000 journalists and mass media
employees took to the streets in Athens in protest over the
government's pension fund merger plans. The mobilization was held with
the participation of press and electronic media journalists, technical
personnel, printers, representatives of the pension funds the
government would like to merge into a unified single fund, the
country's largest private and public-sector unions, GSEE and ADEDY, and
parliamentary deputies. Addressing the strikers in a rally held
outside the offices of the Athens Journalists' Union (ESHEA), union
president Panos Sobolos reiterated the joint decision adopted by all
press sector trade union boards to continue mobilizations to the end.
He stressed that the government will not be allowed to proceed with its
plans, announcing the start of unprecedented strike action by the mass
media sector. Journalists will participate in the nationwide workers'
strike scheduled for December 12 and intend to begin a series of
48-hour or open-ended strikes in the near future. The striking
journalists held a protest march to the ministry of employment and the
parliament building where they delivered petitions with the sector's
demands to the minister in charge of media issues, the parliament
speaker and the political party leaders. Their demands include the
withdrawal of all regulations detrimental to journalists and their
work, abolition of all legislation approved in the past decade that
targets the institution of social insurance, settlement of all pending
contribution payments owed to pension funds, a guarantee of
satisfactory benefits that meet the current needs of the insured and
the preservation of the autonomy and self-management of social security
funds rather than abolishing them through the merger method. Caption:
Striking journalists throughout Greece turned out in unprecedented
numbers on Tuesday for a rally and march held in Athens to protest
against the government's plans to merge their pension fund with other,
financially less robust pension funds as part of a social insurance
reform scheme. (ANA-MPA/Orestis Panagiotou).
|
