(17 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Athens, Greece – 17 April 2024
1. Various of protest outside parliament, some holding smoke flares
2. Various of protesters marching with flags
3. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Christos Gogonis, head of food delivery drivers’ union:
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
“We the workers of food know first-hand what it means to intensify work conditions, what it means for your monthly wage not to last beyond the first two weeks of the month, what work accidents are. Enough is enough. We’re taking our lives into our own hands. As workers we want to be able to make a living to live in 2024.”
4. Wide of people standing outside parliament
5. Reverse of man’s shirt reading (English) “Enough is enough”
6. Wide of Parliament with banner reading (English) “Think and Fight Out of the Box”
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Marilena, last name not given, protester:
"Today we are all protesting to have better working conditions. First of all, wage raises. But not only. We are protesting to have collective working agreements. So we can all have better conditions."
8. Various of protesters
9. Close-up of placard showing photo of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis with text above photo reading (Greek) “A government of murderers”
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Evangelos Antonaros, European Parliament candidate for main opposition party Syriza:
"We are here to protest today against the restrictive policies of the present government, against the cuts in pensions and wages, against the efforts to privatize the public health system of the country. We are not going to stop here. We are going to do anything within our range, within our possibilities, to reverse these very unpleasant developments."
11. Various of protesters marching
12. Various of riot police
13. Wide of banner reading (Greek) “Smash austerity”
14. Wide of protesters marching past parliament
STORYLINE:
Strikes called by Greece’s largest labor union halted ferries and public transport services in Athens and elsewhere Wednesday.
The General Confederation of Greek Labor, GSEE, led the strikes to press for a return of collective bargaining rights axed more than a decade ago during a severe financial crisis.
Several thousand protesters attended a demonstration in central Athens which ended peacefully.
Food delivery drivers and public park workers also joined the strike and protests, with the drivers riding motorbikes and holding up red smoke flares in front of Parliament.
The 24-hour strikes kept ferries at ports and disrupted other public services, leaving some state-run hospitals running on emergency staffing levels.
National rail services were also disrupted but flights at Greek airports were not affected.
Greece has returned to robust economic growth and an investment-grade sovereign bond rating following a series of international bailouts and a severe recession during the 2010-18 crisis.
But unions argue that many labor rights removed as a temporary measure during the bailout-era have not been restored.
Since the crisis, Greece’s minimum wage is set by the government and not through negotiations between unions and employers.
Collective bargaining and the right to strike are protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union but labor associations in Europe say the scale of multi-employer wage agreements has been limited in Greece and other member states affected by the financial crisis.
Police said some 4,000 protesters joined a rally Wednesday in Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki.
AP video shot by Srdjan Nedeljkovic
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