ATHENS – There will be a 24-hour strike affecting all mass media in Greece next Wednesday, starting at 6:00 in the morning, the Athens journalists’ union ESHEA announced on Friday. The strike action was decided in a joint meeting of media-sector trade unions, who opted to join a general strike called by the General Confederation of Employees of Greece (GSEE) and the Greek public-sector staff union federation ADEDY on the same day.

“The boards of the cooperating unions of the press and mass media sector, in their meeting on 23/5/2018 and in the context of the 24-hour nationwide strike action declared by GSEE-ADEDY on Wednesday, May 30, have decided their participation with the declaration of a 24-hour strike from 6:00 on Wednesday, May 30 2018, until 6:00 on Thursday, May 31 2018, in all public and private mass media,” said an announcement issued by the Athens journalists’ union ESHEA on Friday.

According to the announcement, meeting included the boards of ESHEA, the electronic media and magazine press journalists union, the unions of Athens and Thessaloniki newspaper staff, the union of Athens magazine press technicians, the private television technicians’ union, the Greek radio technicians’ union, the union of Greek photojournalists and press distribution, and the printers and paper industry staff unions.

The unions are demanding the immediate abolition “of all anti-labour memorandum policies that violently and undemocratically attack labour and trade union rights and have led to the strangulation of collective labour rights and guarantees, entrenchment of employer rule-breaking, abolition of the social state and pensions and benefits held constantly hostage.”