Athens News reports today that the first round of “labour reserve” will be drawn on Monday.
I have said before that the Greek government is simply not serious about addressing their deficit and this labour reserve is a prime example of what I mean.
Just to recap, instead of the Greek government straight out firing the excess work force they are going to put them on 60% of their wages for a year even though they will be sacked at the end of the year.
This is the action of a government that believes they have all the time in the world.
But that is not the best bit, who do you think the Greek government has decided to put on “labour reserve”?
The last in, last out? ie the newest employees will be the first ones to get fired?
Of course not! That would make far too much sense!
The Greek government has decided the best people to put on “labour reserve” are the ones who would be retiring in the next few years anyway!
The first public sector employees to be removed from the wider public service are all 53 years old or older and have completed 33 years of service.
Obviously the Greek government were going to fire the people who are due to retire anyway. The Greek government does not have enough pension liabilities as it is, so it needs to keep the newest employees so the government can increase their pension liabilities even more.
The Greek government should be firing the last people they hired and letting the normal retirement process take care of the older government employees.
This “labour reserve” policy will have only have a short-term effect. ie firing someone who would have retired in 2 years anyway is only going to give the Greek government a benefit for 2 years, after that they will be back to where they were before.
Whereas if the Greek government fires a government worker in their twenties, the government gets the benefit of sacking this person for the next 40 years.
The policy is the latest in a serious of Greek government actions which shows they have no comprehension of the gravity of their situation, despite threatening the Greek people with apocalypse.
If the Greek politicians believed the Greek financial situation was anywhere near as bad as they tell the people it is, they would be sacking the most recent government employees and they would be doing it without the crazy labour reserve.
The Greek government is constantly telling people the country is in an emergency and calamity is imminent and yet the Greek politicians somehow find the time and the money to keep tens of thousands of ex government workers on the books while paying them for doing nothing. The whole situation is beyond crazy.
It would not be so bad if this is all the Greek government is doing, but no, they are also ramping up the taxes on the Greek people. Taxes with names like “emergency tax” and “solidarity tax” and this on the backdrop of the politicians not showing any urgency whatsoever to sack government employees.
The only thing that can make Greek government politicians see sense, the only thing that will show Greek politicians the true gravity of their situation is to stop bailing them out, to refuse the next tranche of bail out money.
The bailout was only intended to give Greece a buffer, to tie the Greek economy over while the Greek government was shedding thousands of workers. The bailout was intended to support the Greek economy and give it time to recover while these redundancies where happening.
Instead the Greek government has sacked next to nobody and has simply used the bailout money to continue the reckless actions that led the country to its current position.
No political party has shown that it is in the remotest bit serious of doing what is required.
The Greek government is doing the absolute bare minimum it needs to, in order to get the next tranche of bail out cash so it can perpetuate the massive workforce.
The Greek government bail out money is being used for political popularity purposes and not for economic reform.
And I see nothing that will change this behaviour. The Greek government needs to be stopped getting bailed out and be forced to acknowledge reality.
The Greek bailout money is just getting the Greek private sector into a deeper hole with all the taxes. The Greek government problems are the sole problem of the public sector and the public sector should be paying the price in full and not expecting any help whatsoever from the private sector in Greece or Europe.
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