Venizelos, Kouvelis Tell Samaras: No Worker Firings

12-Sep (Greek Reporter) — With international lenders turning the screws on Greece – including extending working hours to 78 hours a week and raising the retirement age to 67 – Prime Minister Antonis Samaras was unable to convince his reluctant coalition partners, PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left chief Fotis Kouvelis to accept the lay off and eventual firing of up to 35,000 public workers over the next three years.

The New Democracy Conservative chief failed to persuade Venizelos and Kouvelis in a meeting to bend to demands from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) to accept the harsh measures in return for a pending $38.8 billion loan installment – the last in a first series of $152 billion in rescue loans – and a second bailout of $173 billion. Without the monies, Greece will be unable to pay its workers and pensioners and go broke, but Kouvelis especially drew a red line against firing workers.

“The Troika has to realize that no measure can be applied in a society that is dissolving,” Kouvelis told reporters after the meeting, referring to the breakdown of Greek life as more than two-and-a-half years of austerity measures have worsened a five-year recession, putting nearly two million people out of work, closed 68,000 businesses and is shrinking the economy by 7 percent.

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PG View: That position is not going to go over well with Greece’s creditors…