Greek healthcare, civil service workers go on strike in Athens

Healthcare workers in Greece staged a walkout to protest against recent government cutbacks which result from a bailout agreement that Athens has reached with its international creditors.Hundreds of healthcare employees including about 500 doctors joined the march in the nation's capital on Wednesday, to protest against an agreement reached between Athens and its troika of international creditors on the release of a bailout loan, press tv reported.The agreement requires austerity measures targeting the public sector including cutbacks to drug supplies, hospital closures and cuts to wages and jobs.Civil servants also took to the streets to protest the government's plan to fire 15,000 workers by next year."They have found a way, an indirect way, through special committees to arbitrarily fire thousands of people, and many times without giving them the chance to defend themselves," said Kostas Tsikrikas, president of Civil Servants Union (ADEDY).Athens, however, said the job cuts are aimed at reducing the high rate of youth unemployment.The unemployment rate in Greece has soared to 27.2 percent of the workforce, standing at more than double the eurozone's average unemployment reading of 12 percent.On April 15, Greece and its international lenders agreed on the release of an 8.8-billion-euro bailout loan for the country with a precondition that Athens should impose further cuts to the civil service sector. Some 4,000 public jobs are expected to disappear this year and an additional 11,000 positions in 2014.Greece has been at the epicenter of the eurozone debt crisis as it witnesses its sixth year of recession amid deep cutbacks and tax hikes at the order of the troika.