Police use Gas on Striking Greek Drivers

[pastradamus]

From Breakingnews.ie:


Police used tear gas to disperse striking Greek fuel-truck drivers today after a government emergency ordered them back to work.

Around 500 drivers gathered in protest outside the transport ministry in Athens, but the incident ended quickly.

Most petrol stations around the country remained closed after a crippling three-day strike that has hit the tourism industry and led to some factory closures and fresh food shortages.

Drivers oppose plans to liberalise their tightly regulated profession – part of major reforms required for Greece to receive rescue loans from European countries and the International Monetary Fund.

The reforms will mean the drivers will no longer be able to sell their business licenses privately, sometimes for as much as £100,000 devaluing the initial investment they made.

Facing prosecution unless they return to work, the drivers say they will not directly defy the emergency civil mobilisation order, but will continue their protest with various forms of disobedience.

“We came here to talk to the (transport) minister and look how they are treating us. We are hard working people and we want a solution to our problems,” striking union leader Giorgos Tzortzatos said.

IMF and European auditors are in Athens to inspect the progress of the belt-tightening reforms that have already seen pensions and civil servants’ salaries slashed and the welfare system tightened.

The inspection is required before Greece receives in mid-September the second instalment of loans from the rescue fund worth up to €110bn from the IMF and the 15 other EU countries using the euro.

Read more: http://breakingnews.ie/world/police-use-gas-on-striking-greek-drivers-467243.html#ixzz0v4JAD6QA

[REDSOX]

Looks like they have defied the back to work order:)

[thälmann]

they try to use the military now to solve the oil problem...

[Leonid Brozhnev]

I love truck drivers... when these guys strike, the frailty of capitalism and the power of workers is undeniable.

[Optiow]

I am just waiting for the moment when they will use actual guns instead of just tear gas.

[Rusty Shackleford]

i didnt realize there was a thread on the Greek Truckers already. i posted in the greece situation board about how the military is trying to make the strikers' effect lessened.
its caused a fuel shortage apparently so now the military is transporting all fuel. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/greek-military-ultimate-t139384/index.html)


ATHENS — Greece dispatched military trucks Friday to alleviate a nationwide fuel shortage caused by striking truckers which has disrupted freight transport and travel in the busy tourist season.
"The armed forces with their own means are already assuring the supply of critical sectors such as airports, electricity plants and hospitals," the government said after a crisis cabinet meeting.
"Navy landing craft will also contribute if necessary to cover the needs of islands by transporting tanker trucks," it added.
The authorities, which had issued a civil mobilisation order on Wednesday that the strikers ignored, added that truckers who continued to defy the law would be prosecuted and their operating licenses could be forfeited.
"We exhausted every limit of good faith," Transport Minister Dimitris Reppas said after the cabinet meeting.
"The state is not unfortified and society is not defenceless," he said.
The truckers, who have blocked most fuel deliveries since Sunday, had earlier decided to maintain their protest against government plans to liberalise the sector and reduce freight costs as Greece battles an unprecedented financial crisis.
"We will continue (the strike) in dynamic fashion," the head of the Greek truck owners confederation, George Tzortzatos, told reporters after a union meeting.
The government on Wednesday told the truckers to go back to work under a requisition order over growing concerns about fuel, food and medicine supplies and the fate of hundreds of thousands of Greeks and foreigners whose travel plans have been thrown into disarray.
But the process began haltingly with only a few hundred civil mobilisation orders so far handed out in each of the country's regions.
The truckers say that boosting competition in the freight sector by reducing new licence charges is unfair to existing operators who have already paid high start-up fees running up to 300,000 euros (392,000 dollars).
"We did not come here to hold a memorial over our licenses," Tzortzatos said after the union meeting, surrounded by cheering fellow drivers who hoisted him into the air.
"We came to celebrate as our ancestors did before going into battle," he said.
The plan is part of a reform programme that the Athens government committed to in May in exchange for a 110-billion-euro (144-billion-dollar) loan package from the International Monetary Fund and European Union.
Greece has suffered waves of strikes and protests over the unprecedented budget cuts and reforms the government had to agree to in order to tap the IMF-EU money it desperately needed to avert default on debts close to 300 billion euros.

[Delenda Carthago]

I am just waiting for the moment when they will use actual guns instead of just tear gas.

you think its funny?

[Optiow]

you think its funny?
Do you think it's funny?

I fail to see how you can get humor out of my post.

[Widerstand]

Do you think it's funny?

I fail to see how you can get humor out of my post.

Well, I for one wouldn't wish for people to get shot down. Your post sort of sounds like you did.

[Blackscare]

Do you think it's funny?

I fail to see how you can get humor out of my post.


So you want innocent proletarians killed... for what? So that it will outrage other workers and *poof*, there'll be a revolution?

Could you sound any more like an unrealistic fantasy leftist at this moment? Actually hoping that proletarians will be shot at.

[Optiow]

Well, I for one wouldn't wish for people to get shot down. Your post sort of sounds like you did.
There is a difference between wishing and waiting. I assume that will happen eventually, so I am waiting for it. I was unaware that waiting for what I think will happen suddenly implies that I am wanting it to happen, and therefore I am an anti-leftist.

If I wished for it, I would hardly be posting to you about it.

[DragonQuestWes]

You know what those truck drivers should have done?

They should scare the shit out of those cops using their trucks.

[Nachie]

Yeah, we'll pass that on buddy

[Saorsa]

The truck drivers must form a military bloc with the forklift drivers. Then they will conquer all.