Civil servants go on strike
Over half a million civil servants are due to stay away from work today seeking better pay, in a 24-hour strike that will affect domestic flights and add to the capital’s chronic traffic problems. Meanwhile, teachers at state primary and secondary schools, as well as at private cramming institutes (frontistiria), doctors working for the Social Security Foundation (IKA), lawyers and Athens prefecture employees all launched 48-hour strikes yesterday. National First Aid Service center employees are due to continue a series of rolling 24-hour strikes today. The civil servants’ union, which called today’s strike, is organizing a march at 11 a.m. from central Korai Square to the Finance Ministry off Syntagma Square. Striking substitute schoolteachers will also march on the ministry, setting off at noon from the central Athens University building on Panepistimiou Street. State hospitals will function on skeleton staff, and Olympic Airways has canceled 19 domestic flights. Aegean Airlines has canceled three.
