An Athenian Diary

13

How Does Athens Work?

Part 2: The Garbage Strike

Starting Saturday the trash began piling up on the streets. The trash collectors have announced a strike to run from Saturday to Wednesday. Just up the street from our back door, the wall displays a prominent sign ordering folks not to deposit trash there. Obviously, whoever left the pile of stones and the abandoned motorcycle acted before the sign was put up (surely no one would trash a motorcycle in the face of such clear instructions?), but the box of garbage that dissolved with the rain is, alas, new.

All over the city now are growing piles of garbage. The trash containers on the streets which seemed such an improvement to us over the situation twenty years ago have capacity for only a day or two's worth of garbage; they are now starting to overflow onto curbs, into the street. It's only Monday now. I can imagine what things will be like in two days, and -- even more to the point, one may be absolutely sure -- what things would be like if the strike went on a week, or two, or . . . .  Addendum on Thursday: Today's paper reports that the strike committee is contemplating a two-day extension of the strike, even though the government has declared that illegal. My Greek teacher says they have started spraying poison on the piles of garbage to keep down the rats. . . .

The Kathemerini reported in a front-page article of the Sunday, October 19, edition that, according to a recent poll, the two biggest problems in Greece are unemployment (identified as "one of the most important problems of the country" by 67.4% of respondents) and the high, rising cost of living (50.4%). These two internal factors, and not the international situation in the Middle East or even foreign policy in general (which drew a mere 3.1% of the respondents; 2.4% identified terrorism as an important problem), will be the axes on which the coming national elections will turn. The same poll revealed that 39.3% would vote today for Nea Demokratia, the (conservative -- which by Greek standards would be probably Joe Biden Democrats in the US) opposition party, and 31.5% for PASOK, the ruling, nominally socialist party. The balance of votes would be divided up among a welter of minor parties, including the Communists (KKE), up now to 6.0% from less than 3% a few weeks ago, enough to put them in third place. A few months ago Athens had a municipal election in which the ND won, placing a woman, Ntora Mbakogianni (daughter of a famous ND politician), in charge of the city. People tell me she is popular and well-liked; but the most important element in that election is, of course, its possible prediction of the outcome of the general election. There is widespread feeling that PASOK, which, with one short exception, has ruled Greece for more than twenty years, is bankrupt of ideas for making the country work. The strikes -- taxi drivers, gas stations, university professors and school teachers, guards at museums and archaeological sites (including the Akropolis, whose guards fall into a special, higher-paid category), and now the garbage collectors -- reflect a general dissatisfaction with the way the government is ruling (and especially, in a number of these cases, its efforts to collect more taxes; see How Does Athens Work? Part 1), fear of unemployment, and worry about the rising cost of living. We have certainly noticed since we arrived how much more expensive everything is in Greece than it was twenty years ago (see Edie's essay on Domestic Economy); Athens now feels like any big western European city when you open your wallet. But wages have not risen anywhere near enough to keep up, and a very large sector of the economy is employed by the government (including many of the categories of striking worker listed above). In an attempt to quell discontent, the Labor Ministry announced last month next year's raises for state employees, but the best, for university professors and teachers, was just over 9%, and the average about 4% (if memory serves). If PASOK leadership hoped this would answer discontent, they must now be sorely disappointed. Ironically, PASOK has long trailed ND among the poorer classes and the rural population; for its last election victory it relied on the margin of the middle classes. These people now are showing for the first time a preference for ND, and this may spell the end of PASOK's dominance next spring.

It's these kinds of problems, which play out in all different kinds of ways, that prompt the strikes both of public employees angry and disappointed and of private groups fearful of losing part of the money that keeps them afloat -- however unfair their gains may be weighed in the larger balance of public benefit. It's hard to see what the solution might be that would work for PASOK; ND enjoys the happy advantage of being able to snipe from the sidelines and promise to do better. They'll no doubt have their chance. But the economic situation of the country will remain the same; where ND will find the resources to do what needs to be done is far from clear; and, should failure extend to a disaster, or even embarrassment, about the Olympics in August, only a few months after the election -- well, one may be sure on whom the blame will fall. (For some observations on the ironies around these preparations, see How Does Athens Work? Part 3.)

The other thing worth observing about all this is the extraordinary centrality of Athens to everything in Greece. The taxi strike included just Thessalonike, and perhaps one or two other towns, as well as Athens; but Athens was the center and the focus of the strike. Likewise everything else -- the city constitutes a stunning fraction of the whole country, packed into a space smaller than the state of Rhode Island. Athens is where everything happens.

October 21, 2003

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