{"id":33111,"date":"2013-05-13T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T10:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/greek-govt-threatens-to-arrest-teachers-over-strike\/33111\/"},"modified":"2013-05-13T11:51:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T10:51:00","slug":"greek-govt-threatens-to-arrest-teachers-over-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/greek-govt-threatens-to-arrest-teachers-over-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek govt threatens to arrest teachers over strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Greek<\/a><\/div>\n

Athens has threatened to arrest high school teachers if they carry out a strike this week, in a move seen as reassurance to Greece\u2019s foreign bailout creditors that the country will not abandon its harsh austerity measures and unpopular reforms.<\/p>\n

The announcement marks the third time this year that the Greek
\ngovernment has invoked emergency laws to force strikers to return
\nto work.<\/p>\n

Greece is due to receive \u00e2\u201a\u00ac7.5 billion in loans soon, the latest
\ntranche of a \u00e2\u201a\u00ac240-billion rescue package signed in 2010; Athens
\ncurrently has no money to pay pensions and wages. To cope with the
\npersonnel gaps, Athens plans to require two additional hours of
\nwork each week from high school teachers, and plans to transfer
\n4,000 of them to remote regions of the country.<\/p>\n

The government broke a longstanding taboo last month by agreeing to
\ndismiss some 15,000 public-sector workers by the end of 2014, a key
\ndemand by the EU and International Monetary Fund for Greece to
\nqualify for further rescue loans, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

According to OLME, the union representing the teachers, about
\n10,000 part-time teachers could be dismissed once their temporary
\ncontracts expire. The union has called for a 24-hour strike when
\nuniversity exams start on May 17.<\/p>\n

However, under Greek law the government has the right to forcibly
\nmobilize workers in the event of a civil disorder, natural disaster
\nor public health risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very authoritarian move from the government because
\nit has issued civil mobilization orders for secondary education
\nteachers in the public school system even before they decided to
\nstage a strike during the university entry exams. Geek law is very
\nexplicit that civil mobilization refers to wars and natural
\ndisasters, not forms of civil protest,\u201d<\/i> Panagiotis Sotiris,
\nsociology lecturer at the University of the Aegean, told RT.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really interesting to see that one of the legal experts,
\nwho has insisted for many years on the unconstitutionality of these
\nemergency laws, is no other than the current Minister of Justice in
\nthe Greek government, Mr Antonis Roupakiotis,\u201d<\/i> he said.<\/p>\n

Education Minister Constantine Arvanitopoulos justified the ban by
\narguing that students had a right to take exams without disruption;
\nteachers will be served a civil mobilization order to go to work on
\nthat day, or risk arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese threats by the prime minister and his government are
\ndirectly against the overwhelming majority of workers and
\nsociety,\u201d<\/i> Greece\u2019s Syriza party, which opposes the bailout,
\nsaid in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Greek government has in recent months intervened frequently to
\nshut down mounting anti-austerity strikes. Earlier this year, it
\ninterrupted week-long walkouts by local sailors that led to food
\nshortages on Greece\u2019s islands, and strikes <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on : RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athens has threatened to arrest high school teachers if they carry out a strike this week, in a move seen as reassurance to Greece\u2019s foreign bailout creditors that the country will not abandon its harsh austerity measures and unpopular reforms. The announcement marks the third time this year that the Greek government has invoked emergency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}