Boutaris to call police if City Hall action continues
Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris said on Thursday that he could appeal to a prosecutor and ask for the police to end a sit-in protest at City Hall that has seriously disrupted the municipality’s work.
“For the municipality to function properly, I will bring in [Joseph] Stalin if needed,” he said at a news conference.
Boutaris said that 50 municipal employees who are protesting the government’s plans to place some civil servants in a mobility scheme are preventing staff who want to go to work from entering City Hall.
He said that the municipality had failed to collect around 2 million euros in rates as a result of the protest, which began last month.
Boutaris said he would wait to hear what the municipal workers’ union (POE-OTA) decides on Friday regarding whether to end or continue its protest, before making his own mind up about what action to take.