By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

ATHENS, Greece – Annual May Day marches in Athens erupted into violent clashes between leftist demonstrators and Greek police.  Tens of thousands of workers took to the streets to protest proposed austerity measures as disproportionately harmful to the nation’s workers and poor.

According to AFP, one demonstrator described the government cutbacks as “the biggest attack on workers for centuries.”  He added: “They want to return us to the 19th Century – this is not going to be a battle but a war that will last for months and even years.”

Greek riot police used tear gas to disperse the rioters in Athens as rioters threw bottles, rocks and petrol bombs at police and television vans. Rioters in Athens and Thessaloniki also vandalized banks and government buildings.

Yannis Papangopoulos, head of the Confederation of Greek Workers, said:  “These policies are totally unfair.  They place all the burden on the have-nots to pay the price of this crisis and not the plutocracy . . . There will be a social explosion once they begin to bite.”

The measures that the ruling Pasok Party hopes to implement include an injection of roughly 120 billion euros into the Greek economy over the next three years, as well as stringent reforms and tax increases.  This involves a reduction of collective bargaining rights, abolition of additional wages paid to supplement low public sector salaries, and the overhaul of the pension and health systems.  Effectively, the measures will eradicate nearly every right acquired by Greek workers and unions over the past thirty years.

Spiros Papaspirou, head of Greece’s Adedy civil servants union, said: “The bill should go to those who looted this country for decades, not to the workers . . . This is the most savage, unjust and unprovoked attack workers have ever faced.”

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has said that the measures are necessary in order to prevent complete economic collapse and to assure the nation’s survival.

For more information, please see:

BBC INTERNATIONAL – Greece police tear gas anti-austerity protesters – 1 May 2010

GUARDIAN – Greece erupts in violent protest as citizens face a future of harsh austerity – 1 May 2010

LOS ANGELES TIMES – Violent May Day Protests in Athens – 1 May 2010