Striking civil servants protest outside ministry after it lists workers to be transferred

Civil servants launched a street protest outside the Administrative Reform Ministry on Friday, a day after the government began publishing the names of thousands of public sector workers who will be placed in a mobility scheme.

Members of the ADEDY union began gathering outside the ministry, on Vassilisis Sofias Avenue in central Athens, from 6 a.m., police said. Officers intervened to allow about 20 ministry employees to enter the building.

The civil servants’ union, ADEDY, called the strike after hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Athens on Thursday to protest the reform. The demonstration came a few hours after the Administrative Reform Ministry made known the names of more than 2,000 primary and secondary school teachers who will be transferred.

The head of the Federation of Secondary School Teachers (OLME), Themis Kotsifakis, was among the teachers included in the ministry’s list. He labeled the ministry’s move a “crime” and made reference to a teacher in Larissa, central Greece, who reportedly died of a heart attack earlier this week after learning she would be transferred.

The teachers, who number 2,122, will be joined by some 3,000 municipal police officers, 1,500 administrative staff from universities and technical colleges, 1,500 public healthcare workers and 600 staff from various social security funds and the OAED manpower organization.

The government has promised the troika it will have 12,500 civil servants in the scheme by September and 25,000 by the end of the year. The public sector workers will receive 75 percent of their salary for eight months until another position is found for them. If no position is found for them, they will be dismissed at the end of eight months.

“The mobility and exit logic will relate to people who got into the public sector from the back door – not through the front door,” Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Reuters in an interview.