General strike in Greece with central protest march in Athens

A 24 hour general strike in Greece sees all public sector and large part of private sector closed as well as clashes between demonstrating strikers and riot police in Athens.

As of the early hours of the 21st of October, Greece is in a state of a general strike to be followed by a 24h strike of all shop workers on the following day. The industrial action which sees all the public sector including transport closed, and a large part of the private sector in standstill, is set to counter the neoliberalist measures of the government and especially the pension and social security reform that has caused the condemnation of the entirety of the working people of the country since its introduction last spring.

During the central protest march of the trade unions in the morning of the 21st in Athens, during which protesters decried a 28bn-euro (£22bn) government rescue package to banks hit by the international credit crisis - one banner reading: "Not one euro to support the capitalists" - strikers and students attacked banks and one bookshop that was operating on scab-labour, forcing them to close down. During the course of the protest march provocative riot police forces attempted to break the university asylum of Propylaea on whose grounds the initial gathering of the trade unions took place. This attempt was faced with the active response of anarchosyndicalists and students. The reaction of the police which employed tear gas against the demonstrators injuring two was effectively counteracted by an attack of the dockworkers in defense of the asylum.

http://www.libcom.org/news/general-strike-greece-with-central-protest-march-athens-21102008