The Greek parliament approved a bill June 30 put forth by the New Democracy government of Constantinos Karamanlis to “restructure” bank workers’ pension funds. About 300 striking bank workers, blowing whistles, marched to the parliament building in Athens while legislators were debating the bill.

This was the latest in a series of actions by the unions of bank workers in opposition to the bill. They were joined by thousands of other workers on June 24 when the General Confederation of Workers of Greece called for a 24-hour strike in defense of pensions.

“The employers and the government want to reduce the amount received when you retire and they want to increase the number of years you must work for full entitlement,” explained striking bank worker Iannis Petropoulos, who is a member of the Union of Employees at the Attiki Bank. “The new measures will in effect reduce payments and benefits by 40 percent for future pensioners and increase the amount of years you need to work by seven for men and 15 years for women, for a full pension,” he stated.

“The government bill would do away with the separate bank workers fund and unite it with the inferior state social security fund [IKA]. Workers hired after 1993 would be affected,” explained a woman striker near retirement from Emporiki Bank who did not want to be identified. “Right now a woman worker can take early retirement at 840 euros a month [1 euro = US$1.19]. With IKA it is 400 a month. You see, the bankers make lots of money that way,” she added.

“This is just the beginning of their attacks. Other public and private sector workers will be next with their pensions and other benefits on the block,” said Petropoulos.

The government has announced that discussions must begin on an overhaul of the social security system. It has in fact presented the passage of this measure that “equalizes” pensions downward as a first step in an overall “reform” of the social security system.

Meanwhile the OTOE (Federation of Bank Employees) announced June 29 a suspension of its strike actions, but left open the option of “organizing protest action at every bank that attempts to join the new unified auxiliary pension fund,” reported the July 1 Athens Times.  
 
 
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