Teachers lack allies as rift forms with ADEDY
Secondary school teachers, who have been ordered by the government not to join a planned strike on Friday, appeared on Tuesday to have little support for their anti-austerity protest as a rift formed with the civil servants’ union (ADEDY) after the latter refused to back the teachers’ planned walkout on Friday.
ADEDY held its own strike on Tuesday to protest the government’s repeated use of civil mobilization. The turnout at ADEDY’s protest rally in the city center was the lowest in recent months, with less than 300 people in attendance. Although the teachers’ union (OLME) did not officially back ADEDY’s strike, a group of teachers turned up and rounded on ADEDY’s vice president, Antonis Antonakos, accusing his union of “treacherous” behavior.
Meanwhile several local teachers’ associations voted to join Friday’s strike despite the mobilization order. In Pyrgos, in the Peloponnese, a group of teachers burned their orders, while on the island of Chios teachers swore at police officers who delivered them their papers.
OLME’s president, Nikos Papachristos, met on Tuesday with the head of the leftist opposition SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, who called on the government to revoke the civil mobilization order, saying the move “deprived citizens of their constitutionally protected freedoms.”
