Images from the lockdown period come to the minds of those who walk in the squares of their area, as today a number of companies took part in the strike.
Catering entrepreneurs will keep their shops closed, protesting against the measures taken for the coronavirus.
With a basic request to take compensatory measures for to cover the losses caused by the new restrictions on the market to our unvaccinated fellow citizens, The trade unions of catering professionals are mobilizing today, calling for a general strike and local protests.
Gathering in Syntagma Square at 11.00
In Athens, a rally is expected to take place at 11.00:XNUMX in Syntagma Square, from where a mini march will start to the Maximos Palace, where the relevant resolution is expected to be delivered.
"Focus is bleeding", states in its announcement for the 24-hour strike the Panhellenic Federation of Restaurant & Related Professions (POESE), whose members will deliver a protest resolution to the office of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, at 12 noon on Tuesday, at the Maximos Palace.
Catering entrepreneurs are calling for compensatory measures and complain that its industry has been hit hardest than anyone else during the pandemic.
What are they asking for
"Respecting public health, we are looking for sustainable support measures so that we and our thousands of employees can survive." The WTO says in a statement, citing the demands of the industry in view of tomorrow's strike:
- Adjustment of fines and their transfer to the offender.
- Change of repayable advance to NON-repayable.
- Participation in decision making with participation in the competent committees.
- Energy cost and rent subsidy.
- Subsidy for employer contributions or suspension of employment contracts.
- Exemption from the payment of municipal fees.
- Reduction of VAT to 6%.
- Continuation of the subsidy of loan installments.
- New funding similar to those of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.
- Special Secretariat or Catering Chamber.
- Resolving labor costs with special regulations in distortions of labor legislation, which do not take into account the high intensity additional costs of the industry (night, evening, holidays, weekends) and its uniqueness in all jobs.
- Rationalization of the industry with structural changes.
Georgiadis: "Thanksgiving for the restaurant to ask for more money"
The Minister of Development, Adonis Georgiadis, characterized the call of the catering professionals for more support resources as "ingratitude", more or less, against the background of the new measures of the government for the coronavirus.
Mr. Georgiadis noted, speaking to OPEN, that the restaurant received the most money compared to other industries and pointed out that the grief of entrepreneurs should be directed to the unvaccinated, who "because of them the pandemic continues to exist."
"To hear that we do not support catering, to hear with such intensity that catering also demands new money, is very unfair. At the meeting at the Maximos Palace, the representatives of the retail trade, before the Prime Minister, expressed their great complaint that the restaurant took huge resources in relation to other sectors ", stressed the Minister of Development.
And he added that "The truth is that the restaurant received more than double the resources from any other industry in Greece. At some point, this whole thing starts to sound like ingratitude. Because the resources that went to the restaurant, they were deprived of retail, freelancers and other industries. Mr. Kavvathas should put this parameter in his public speech as well ", said the minister.
"We understand that they are upset about the measures. "But their grief should not be directed at the government, which forced them to adopt them because of the pandemic, but at their unvaccinated fellow citizens, who insist on having a pandemic in Greece by not being vaccinated.", said Mr. Georgiadis.
The bill for the unvaccinated, then…
However, the catering area, which with the new measures will now be forced to work only with vaccinated people, since it is winter and indoors, people who have been infected with coronavirus are allowed to enter, "for a year now, it has been slaughtered", as they say typically the shopkeepers.
One million workers in the air
"We have 80.000 catering businesses and half of them are threatened with a padlock", said at the beginning of the year the president of GSEVEE, George Kavvathas, to whom the Minister of Development referred.
Suffice it to note that last January, 10 restaurants closed in the once busy Gazi, while the problem - which remains and intensified - focuses not only on Athens and the center, but also on the outskirts and the region.
"In Thessaloniki, only in the city center, another 40 restaurants closed. The problem is big in Rhodes, Chania, in the suburbs of Athens, Kifissia, Eritrea and other areas ", said Mr. Kavvathas last January.
At the same time, the catering workers are still "in the air" and with many facing the issue of survival.
"The employees in the restaurant are 330.000, with the industry being the second largest employer after the State", revealed the president of GSEVEE, pointing out, however, that they are not the only ones, as "it is also a series of sectors, from primary to tertiary affecting at least one million workers ".
"We turned our backs on the pandemic, but…"
"You have impoverished a large industry, blaming it for the spread of the virus and for the three evils of our fate," said the Catering Professionals Circle.
"Despite the fact that we, the people of the restaurant, have turned our backs on the health crisis, obeying the constitutional requirement of all citizens to contribute to public burdens (Ed. Article 4, par. 5), closing our stores for a huge period of time, we find that you are throwing the fulfillment of our obligation for social solidarity in the calendars ", the Circle claimed, adding:
"How else can we translate that while we accepted the quasi-revocation of the operating license you imposed on us, you 'rewarded' us with the performance fee for 2020 and 2021, charging us with 1.300 euros?"
The focus is on the new measures - Reduction of up to 50% in turnover
Reactions to the focus remain on the new measures implemented against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which concern the unvaccinated as as the professionals of the industry emphasize, the new restrictions have brought about a reduction in the volumes, while they demand compensatory measures from the government for the losses.
According to the president of POESE, George Kavvatha, the turnover of catering businesses was reduced by 30% to 50% in the first weekend of November, when the new measures were implemented for the first time, compared to the previous weekend.
in.gr