Greek Union Strike

Greek union members are expected to go on a daylong strike Tuesday to protest new austerity measures sought by foreign lenders as the country negotiates to keep its finances afloat.Officials in Greece are under pressure to reach an agreement on a new bailout package with the threat of a default hanging over the country.Prime Minister Lucas Papademos met with officials from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank on Monday to try and hammer out the details of a €130 billion bailout deal.Greece needs the money to avoid defaulting on a €14.5 billion bond redemption in March. The concern is that a so-called disorderly default could force Greece out of the euro monetary union and shock the global financial system.Papademos must also convince the leaders of Greece's three main political parties to back a package of fiscal and economic reforms that are a condition of the bailout.The party leaders agreed over the weekend on the "main elements" of the program, including a plan to reduce public spending by 1.5% of gross domestic output this year, according to Papademos.But talks scheduled for Monday were pushed back to Tuesday amid apparent disagreements over additional job and salary cuts, as well as pension reforms and tougher tax enforcement.The country's unions say they are unhappy with the new demands. They have called many strikes in the past few years to protest the successive waves of austerity measures announced by the authorities.Greece, which owes some €330 billion, has come close to default before.The nation has struggled to follow through on budget cuts and economic reforms that were a condition of its 2010 bailout package. But the nation's economy has been in recession for years and many analysts warn that additional austerity could make the situation worse.

Summary: Greek Union workers are expected to go on strike on Tuesday, which owes some €330 billion, has come close to default before.The nation has struggled to follow through on budget cuts. The Government has been in serious debt for a long time and has proposed a 130 Billion pounds of bailout to solve this financial problem. The Union strikers have declined the offers many times till they get there way.

My Opinion: After reading this artical i said to myself what part of Europe isn't in debt and have money problems today. I think the point of having union workers are unnecessary and stuiped, think about it they get paid a high amount of money for the work there doing witch is low to nothing. it will take hours to get a job done. For example a union bus worker, if a light bulb breaks on his bus he cant stop the bus to fix it. He has to wait for a electrical to come by if he does it himself he will go to court if taken the proper steps. European countries need to find a way to generate more money than they give. A term not in the European dictionary is profit. Take Italy for example, it's corrupted. No one knows how much money the Vatican has and if there willing to bail out the countries 300 billion dollar debt. With the amount of tourists coming to Italy there should be more than enough for the country to distribute the wealth. Same thing goes for grease.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/07/world/europe/greece-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2

Tuesday, February 7 2012