IMF demands mass layoff legislation in Greece

The greek government is being demanded to find ways to save a couple of billion euros next year and 1,7 billions in 2016, by the International Monetary Fund, as part of the bailout scheme the greek government is under.

IMF published their fifth report on the greek economy Tuesday the 10th of June, where on one side they give a tap on the back to the bourgoise government’s cutback policies and at the same time warn and claim that reforms will put a stick in the wheel for further “necessary” cutbacks.

“The financial political adjustments in Greece have achieved impressive results without a match globally” says IMF’s report. But it stresses at the same time that the political will for continuing cutbacks will have serious challenges in the coming months.

And it’s not just the people’s uprising against cutback policies and the “risk” that the left-wing party Syriza, that came first in the EU election, can become the next governing party, that will put obstacles for the government’s policies.

Court rules against layoffs

The courts gets in the way for the agreements that the government has done with Troika.

In May a court ruled against the layoffs of 400 cleaning assistants in the ministry of finance. The people that were fired have been demonstrating daily for months in front of the ministry of finance against their firing. The cleaning personnel have set up tents outside the ministry and demand to be rehired.

The government has tried to make the supreme court delay the courts verdict to rehire the 400.

On Thursday the 12th of June the supreme court gave the government the right to delay until the final verdict, which is expected to come in September.

The greek law against mass-layoffs is excactly one of these bumps on the road that IMF wants removed. In the past other groups have received help from the court to rule that the layoffs were lacking legal basis.

IMF wants the government to bring in a entirely new wage system in the public sector. Furthermore they ask for new legislation on layoffs of public employees that doesn’t pass an evaluation test, although it is clearly illegal according to current law.

Employees under the loupe

The governments attempt to meet the cutback goals, agreed with Troika, resulted in the plan to investigate the background of 40.000 public employees, who were originally temporarily hired, but were promoted to a permanent possition.

A team of inspectors will investigate their employmentpapers, to find unjustifiable promotions, f.x. faked exam results. The employers will be immediately fired if any abnormalties appear.

At the same time, the administrative personnel in the universities started a three day strike to safe 399 colleagues, who is risking final layoff after being removed from their job one year ago, to have the status as a reserve with a extremely lowered sallary.

The union is threatening with more strikes that will “damage the academic year” if there is no guarantees given for their future employment.

This article is freely translated from Modkraft http://modkraft.dk/artikel/imf-kr-ver-gr-sk-lovgivning-imod-massefyringer-v-k