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Greece's million unpaid workers
Topic Started: 8 Dec 2013, 11:34 AM (3,205 Views)
Count du Monet
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It doesn't look the pain is being shared?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25215690

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5 December 2013 Last updated at 02:19 GMT


Greece's million unpaid workers
By Mark Lowen BBC News, Athens
Antonis Giakoumatos, aboard the Penelope Antonis Giakoumatos: "I feel like I'm waiting to die."

She stands idle, tied ashore, her hull slowly rusting.

The Penelope should make a daily crossing from the port of Rafina, outside Athens, to the beautiful islands of Andros, Tinos and Mykonos. But since the summer, she has been stuck, the crew refusing to sail as they have not been paid for months on end.

The ship is named after the wife of the ancient Greek figure Odysseus. She is said to have waited patiently for his return from the Trojan war. But the patience of these workers is fast running out.

Around 20 have occupied the boat, living on board for fear of losing their jobs altogether if they abandon ship. And so they stay on a deserted shell with no electricity or running water, the kitchens dark and closed up, passenger lounges with rows of vacant seats.

In one corridor, a sign proudly reads: "Your perfect holiday starts here". The irony is not lost on the desperate workers.

"The situation here is very difficult," says Antonis Giakoumatos, the first officer. "We stay in a ghost ship. I feel very sad and angry because I don't have the money to go and see my wife and children."
The Penelope, moored in Rafina, Greece The Penelope's crew have not been paid for months

I ask what the atmosphere was like on board when the ship sailed.

"It was very good. I would see the passengers' smiles and know I was doing my job well. Now it's empty. I feel like I'm waiting to die here."

The crew - and the BBC - have tried to contact the company, Agoudimos Lines, but to no avail. The assumption is that it is in financial trouble and so is withholding salaries, confident that workers would rather this than have no job at all.
Knock-on effect

The employees of the Penelope are some of the one million private sector workers in Greece who go unpaid. The Labour Institute of the Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) found this week that one in every two companies was not paying its staff on time.

Much of the focus in Greece's financial crisis has been on public sector cuts but this is the other side of the story - private companies crumbling from a drop in demand. And Platon Tinios, an economist at the University of Piraeus, says the two are linked.
The Hellenic Shipyards Workers at the Hellenic Shipyards have not been paid in over a year
Kostas Hatzopoulos at the Hellenic Shipyards Shipyard worker Kostas Hatzopoulos says he is surviving on loans and handouts

"The public sector is exporting its problems to the private sector," he says. "When the state is squeezed - as it has been frequently - the easiest thing is to postpone payment to suppliers. Hence a liquidity problem in the private sector."

Can the Greek economy ever achieve robust growth after years of recession if the private sector is hobbled in this way, I ask?

"I don't think so," he replies. "But there's another problem: banks have stopped lending or, when they do so, it's at very high interest rates. So companies try to economise where they can, and delaying payments to workers is the easiest form of finance."

Across Athens at the Hellenic Shipyards, it is an even worse story. The 1,200 workers have not been paid since April 2012. The cranes are halted, vast floating docks lie rusting in the water - one of Greece's key industries paralysed.

"It's been my job for 33 years," says Kostas Hatzopoulos as he looks out at the old machinery.

"It was my life, my experience, my technical knowledge. Now I've had to survive by borrowing money from friends and asking for food from the Church."

Here, it is partly corruption to blame. The shipyard was previously owned by a German company, HDW, now part of ThyssenKrupp.

In 2000, the Greek government signed a murky contract to pay the owner to build and modernise Greek naval submarines at the shipyard. The cost - at almost 3bn euros (£2.5bn; $4bn) - was hidden from Greece's deficit figures so the country could join the eurozone.
Company tactic?

Since then, the defence minister involved, Akis Tzochatsopoulos, has been jailed for taking kickbacks on the deal.
The Hellenic Shipyards The cranes at the Hellenic Shipyards rest idle

In 2010, a majority stake in the shipyard was bought by Abu Dhabi Mar, an Emirati company, expecting payments for the order to be honoured.

But with the financial crisis, Greece's formerly vast defence budget - its military spending was the highest in the EU, as a proportion of GDP - was cut down to size.

Now the contract has not been paid and so the company has withheld salaries. Abu Dhabi Mar refused to talk, as did Greece's ministry of defence, but a coalition MP, Makis Voridis, insists the firm has reneged on its obligations.

"They haven't done the work they're meant to be doing and so the state will not pay," he says.

"I think they're using the social problem of leaving workers unpaid to push the state to give money that is not owed. We must solve the problem but in a way that respects taxpayers' money."

Regular protests by the shipyard workers have failed to break the deadlock but they are just some among so many now, deprived of the safety net of a stable job.

Greece already has record unemployment of over 27% but that does not include the million or so unpaid workers.

It is a story you simply would not expect to hear in a European Union country in 2013. But then, in today's Greece, there is just so much that shocks.
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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themoops
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Count du Monet
8 Dec 2013, 11:34 AM


This is what excessive chardonnay socialism does. It's scary that there's so many out there.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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newjez
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themoops
8 Dec 2013, 01:39 PM
This is what excessive chardonnay socialism does. It's scary that there's so many out there.
I think it's more a problem of corruption and cronyism.
Whenever you have an argument with someone, there comes a moment where you must ask yourself, whatever your political persuasion, 'am I the Nazi?'
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themoops
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newjez
8 Dec 2013, 03:57 PM
I think it's more a problem of corruption and cronyism.
Well besides Goldman Sachs doing whatever they did.

It was the worst of communism and capitalism combined.

People wanting to retire at 52 or something and live on the pension for decades, and people avoiding tax like it was a sport.

A lot of our population thinks the same way, wanting big wealth via property theft, but demanding lots of public services, and just saying those on $100k or more should pay for everything or the likes of James Packer should.

Conveniently neglecting the fact that if you did steal all of Gina's wealth, $20bn, it'd probably only last a few months if it were spent on the general population.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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Count du Monet
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Quote:
 
People wanting to retire at 52 or something and live on the pension for decades, and people avoiding tax like it was a sport.


No problem, it really depends on what sort of lifestyle they want. If they're happy with some bread, a greek salad and a few shots of ouzo.

http://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:GRC:PRT

That was quite a party they had when they got the Euro credit card until the GFC hit.

Looks like the Greek ability for Arithmetic has been downhill since Archimedes got stabbed.

The Greek GDP is 22k per capita, where as something like Turkeys 10k per capita is closer to what would be realistic for Greece.

The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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Black Panther
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Count du Monet
8 Dec 2013, 06:34 PM


No problem, it really depends on what sort of lifestyle they want. If they're happy with some bread, a greek salad and a few shots of ouzo.

http://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:GRC:PRT

That was quite a party they had when they got the Euro credit card until the GFC hit.

Looks like the Greek ability for Arithmetic has been downhill since Archimedes got stabbed.

The Greek GDP is 22k per capita, where as something like Turkeys 10k per capita is closer to what would be realistic for Greece.
Good point Count. Perhaps if the Greeks did a Snow Nigger and unhonored the money they borrowed then they could default.

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Count du Monet
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Black Panther
8 Dec 2013, 06:42 PM
Good point Count. Perhaps if the Greeks did a Snow Nigger and unhonored the money they borrowed then they could default.
Tomorrow is another day.

Too many Greeks figured they should live like Germans with the real product output per capita of Turkey.

Greek PS figured they should have the income and lifestyle of Germany while living in a nation with low product.

The Downfall of Greece is it's every bastard for themselves. They have enough wealth to see a standard of social security for everybody but one Greek would rather see another Greek suffer than lose a creme coffee for themselves. Bit by bit Australia is becoming like that.

I drink cheap coffee black, I'm only in it for the drugs!
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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themoops
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Count du Monet
8 Dec 2013, 07:23 PM
Tomorrow is another day.

Too many Greeks figured they should live like Germans with the real product output per capita of Turkey.

Greek PS figured they should have the income and lifestyle of Germany while living in a nation with low product.

The Downfall of Greece is it's every bastard for themselves. They have enough wealth to see a standard of social security for everybody but one Greek would rather see another Greek suffer than lose a creme coffee for themselves. Bit by bit Australia is becoming like that.

I drink cheap coffee black, I'm only in it for the drugs!
Maybe it was the Moors.

Edited by themoops, 8 Dec 2013, 08:09 PM.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
Profile "REPLY WITH QUOTE" Go to top
 
Black Panther
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themoops
8 Dec 2013, 08:08 PM
Maybe it was the Moors.

Very Cool. On history, did you know that when the Romans conquered Icenia (Britain) the Legionnaires they stationed there were from Syria.

It was customary Roman practise’s to raise Legions from conquered lands and then post them the furthest point from their homeland within the empire.

For over 400 years Legionnaires from Syria were mixing their blood with the Icenians (British),

Thats why even today Brits look darker than the Scandinavians and Germans.

Also, did you know that the Jewish Wailing Wall is in fact a wall of a Roman Fort. Sure to interest Moopsy.

Edited by Black Panther, 8 Dec 2013, 08:32 PM.
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themoops
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Black Panther
8 Dec 2013, 08:27 PM


Also, did you know that the Jewish Wailing Wall is in fact a wall of a Roman Fort. Sure to interest Moopsy.
I'm not a jew, I'm a proddy.

My parents were proddies, their parents were proddies, and their parents were proddies, and their parents were proddies, there was just some dude about 160 years ago who was hebrew, who went to the outback and raised sheep.

I didn't have a bah mitsvah,

I don't wear those stupid little hats,

I don't have a big beard and those stupid little curly bits hanging down the side of my head,

I've never set foot in a temple,

My nose isn't big,

I have green eyes,

I'm not a big fan of money,

I don't run the fucking media,

I don't run the fed,

I grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney, a very, very white part of Sydney. (although slowly becoming a vermin fest)

I don't really care about Israel,

I think PC has gone way too far,

I want to reduce immigration considerably,

I want to reduce the banks' power in society considerably, probably even go back to a gold standard and all that crap.

Guess what dip shit. I. am. not. a. fucking. jew.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
Profile "REPLY WITH QUOTE" Go to top
 
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