Govt employees protest over austerity bill

More than 1,200 public sector employees, most of which occupied ministries, take to the streets of Athens and stage a protest outside the parliament over austerity measures, threatening to continue strikes until next week.More than 1,200 civil servants took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday after they occupied entrances to various government offices, protesting against the latest austerity measures and threatening to continue strikes until next week. Athens has promised tough new civil service wage cuts to convince the European Union and International Monetary Fund that it will meet its budget deficit targets.Public sector workers have already lost a third of their salaries since the start of the crisis. Union leaders say the next austerity bill, expected to be voted in parliament soon, will further reduce wages by 20 percent on average. The new bill will include a sweeping package of measures, ranging from wage and pension cuts, tax hikes and the sacking of 30,000 civil servants.Workers of the Culture Ministry who announced a strike on Wednesday which shut down museums and archaeological sites in a country where tourism is the number one income earner, blocked the entrance to the ministry and vowed to fight until the austerity measures were reversed.“We promise them one thing we will fight until this government, the IMF and the troika are gone,” one union representative of the employees of the Culture Ministry told protesters.