Greek anti-austerity strikes hit ferries, tourists

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Communist trade unionists blocked travellers from boarding ships at Greece's largest port on Wednesday, stranding tourist ferries as part of protests against austerity measures in the debt-choked nation.Tourist bookings are already down following strikes and sometimes violent protests against wage cuts, pension and labour reforms which the socialist government is implementing in exchange for a 110 billion euro ($147.6 billion) EU/IMF bailout.About 200 union members barred travellers from ferries at the main Athens port of Piraeus in sympathy with striking merchant marine engineers, frustrating tourists heading for the Greek islands. In Athens, 5,000 Communists staged a march."No vessels have been leaving Piraeus port," a coastguard official said. Union members blocked the boarding ramps of the ferries and planned to keep up their protest until midnight when the engineers' strike ends."I think it's stupid," said Robert Smith, from Perth, Australia. "The tourists won't come ... businesses will close."Communist protesters blame Greece's debt crisis on politicians and say workers have no choice but to oppose swingeing cuts that pushed unemployment to a 10-year high of 11.7 percent of the workforce in the first quarter.SAILINGS STOPPEDAbout two dozen scheduled sailings were affected, including to the popular Cycladic islands which include Mykonos and Paros, destinations in the Argosaronic gulf and Crete, Greece's biggest island.Tourism is a top contributor to Greece's 240 billion euro ($294 billion) economy, accounting for about 18 percent of GDP. Travel spending by non-residents fell 7.8 percent in the first four months of the year, the Bank of Greece said on Wednesday.In the 5,000-strong march in Athens -- in line with recent turnout at Communist rallies -- protesters carried banners such as "Let the rich pay for the crisis"."We are striking against the storm that is coming, the changes in pensions and labour laws which will turn workers into beggars," said Yiannis Kouklis, 38, who works at a pharmaceutical company. "Labour action will intensify."A one-day general strike is due on June 29 against pension and labour reforms due to be submitted to parliament this week.A rally on Wednesday evening by public sector employees drew only about 150 protesters, smaller than recent demonstrations.The Greek government will hold a cabinet meeting on Thursday -- it was unclear if it would decide to submit a pension and labour reform bill this week as planned or delay until next week.Separately, Greece's representative at the International Monetary Fund said he believed Athens would have no problems complying with conditions set to secure a second aid tranche of 9 billion euros after 20 billion last month."The IMF's findings are positive," Panagiotis Roumeliotis told a conference in Athens.Greece's mood was not helped after the Greek soccer team were knocked out of the World Cup finals on Tuesday after a 0-2 loss to Argentina. "Greek national team fell fighting" and "the goodbye tango" were among newspaper headlines.(Additional reporting by George Georgiopoulos, Tatiana Fragou, Angeliki Koutantou, Konstantinos Ampatzis, Harry Papachristou, Ingrid Melander; Writing by Alister Doyle, editing by David Stamp)

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