ATHENS - Buses, metro trains, trams and taxis stayed out of circulation in the Greek capital Friday, snarling traffic around Athens as public transport workers striked for a second day against austerity measures.
Taxi drivers joined the 48-hour public transport strike, while lawyers walked off the job until Oct. 19 and customs officers for 10 days.
Greece's two largest labour unions have announced a 48-hour nationwide general strike for Oct. 19-20, which will coincide with a vote in Parliament on new budget cuts, which includes reforms to the labour law.
The government has been imposing repeated rounds of austerity measures as it struggles to meet the requirements to qualify for funds from a C110 billion ($151 billion) international bailout loan that is preventing it from defaulting on its debts. Its international debt inspectors have said the country will likely receive the next C8 billion installment of the loans in early November.
Athens has said it only has enough money to pay salaries and pensions until mid-November.
Public servants are the main targets of the latest reforms that include across-the-board salary cuts and the suspension of 30,000 workers on the state payroll with reduced salaries. Pensioners will also see more cuts and salary earners will pay higher taxes, while parliament has already approved an emergency property tax to be charged starting this month through household and business electricity bills.
The new measures have led to widespread criticism not only from labour unions and opposition parties, but also from within the governing Socialist party, with some deputies implying they will not vote in favour of the bill on Thursday unless changes are made.
Markets and analysts believe that an eventual default by Greece is inevitable, and some have raised the prospects of the country leaving the European Union's joint currency, the euro. Both Greek and European officials have repeatedly insisted this is not on the cards.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, speaking in Parliament, said such a prospect would be disastrous.
"An exit from the euro leads to poverty and the jungle," Venizelos said, and called on the opposition parties to support the government's efforts to pull the country out of its crisis.
"We have an obligation to tell the people the truth about how dangerous, fluid, unclear the situation is," he said. "We must be united when there is danger in order to be secure and sovereign."
Venizelos criticized the repeated strikes and protests, which have included takeovers of government buildings, saying that "the image there has been in the last few weeks is one of lawlessness," and that blackmail was a different thing from fighting for people's rights.
The finance minister said the government was prepared to assume the political cost of pushing through unpopular but necessary austerity measures.
