President calls on civil servants to tone down demands

By George Psyllides

President Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday censured workers’ demands and strike threats, saying they were mostly unjustified and only served to inconvenience the public.

“We have conveyed to the workers – and that is why I am somewhat bothered by the oftentimes unjustified work stoppages which inconvenience people – that no one’s interest will be hurt,”

Anastasiades said, referring to a planned nurses strike on Thursday.

Speaking at a gathering of retired civil servants, the president said they have offered temporary staff indefinite status, taken care of the overtime issue but there was a problem “because some people do not want to punch a card when they come and go.”

And while all their demands have been satisfied, nurses now wanted to be upgraded to a different pay scale, something that will cost the state between €30 and €35 million, he said.

“At a time when there is 16 per cent unemployment, at a time when unfortunately there are still lines at food banks, such matters cannot be raised and constitute a cause of friction,” Anastasiades said.

He also stressed that port workers’ rights had been secured and their concerns were more or less unjustified.

Port workers staged a strike last week to protest government plans to denationalise.

Anastasiades said similar reactions were experienced in Greece before COSCO took over commercial operations at the port of Piraeus.

“Not only there were no negative effects suffered by the workers but on the contrary 1,000 new jobs were created,” he said.

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