Greek teachers abandon strike plans

School teachers in Greece have dropped their plans to hold a strike during university entrance exams after the government passed an emergency decree to thwart their move.

According to AFP, Nikos Papachristos, head of the Federation of Secondary Education State School Teacher (OLME), said on Thursday that the plans for the strike, scheduled to begin on Friday, were abandoned.
He said “There are colleagues facing dismissal, we don’t want families to cry and homes to shut.”
The union’s vote on Wednesday failed to secure the majority for pursuing the six-day strike. The country’s other major unions also rejected OLME’s request to hold a general strike on Friday in support of the teachers’ move.
The country’s top court had also refused the teachers’ plea to suspend the government’s emergency order aimed at preventing the strike.
A four-hour work strike was called for Thursday instead to protest the planned job cuts and two-hour increase on teachers’ weekly working hours.