“Freeeeesh lettuce!”, “Here are the good strawberries!”, “Apples! Apples!”, “Sweet oooooranges!”, “Catch of the day! Fresh fish!” Open-air market vendors will start praise their fruits, vegetables and fish on Wednesday, May 7th 2014, as they decided to suspend their strike. Reason to halt the 9-day strike was the intervention of coalition government PASOK that threatened to down vote the relevant legislation as it disagreed with the provision that “stall spots had to be distributed per lottery once a year.”
Much to my knowledge, the lottery-distribution for stall spots will apply to new licenses only and will affect the old vendors. However there were still many issues open, one of them being the unprecedented provision “to suspend the open-air market license if the vendor has debts to the tax office or the social insurance fund” – something that does not apply to any other professional groups.
The vendors decided to suspend their strike announcing at the same time, that they will continue their struggle.
PS I suppose one more reason for the strike-suspension was probably that 9 days without income have left many families in need and thus in times of economic crisis.
Much to my knowledge
