Labour Unions confronting Unprecedented Austerity in Greece, 2010-2013

The global financial crisis which began in 2007 has greatly impacted on Greece, a Southern European country of high debt. In the past two years the country witnessed dramatic transformations in labor, public policies, and social services, with grave consequences for its population. Since 2010, defensive protests against unprecedented austerity measures vividly reflect the effects of economic globalization across national borders as well as the swift changes imposed by powerful political and economic actors on labor organization, rights and movements in Greece. Within a relational approach, the paper aims to understand the swift transformations affecting labor unions since the crisis erupted focusing on, a) problems of representation and trust, b) the impacts of budget cuts on labor unions, c) labor protest cycles within a national anti-austerity campaign, d) claims making and action repertoires, e) labor union alliances with political parties and civil society groups in large anti-austerity protests, f) future paths of labor unions in Greece. In order to approach the above issues, we will first present the major characteristics of Greek industrial relations until 2010 and discuss the new economic data that have emerged following the austerity policy adopted during the crisis and memoranda (2010-2013). We will apply protest event analysis of the 13 (thus far) national strikes by both public and private sector unions from February 2010 to June 2013, using major media sources and sites. Labor protest cycles played a critical role as part of a national anti-austerity campaign of a total of 32 large protest events. The analysis will illustrate and discuss labor union participation, their claims making and action repertoires, their alliances, as well as the responses of the involved challenged groups. We will conclude with a discussion on re/theorisation of labor contention based on evidence from a Southern European country.