That’s equivalent to about 450,000 new public employees in the US. Here’s the FT:
Opposition lawmakers accused Syriza of violating that agreement with the new laws, which could expand the government payroll by as many as 15,000 employees.
But government ministers remained defiant. “We aren’t going to consult [bailout monitors], we don’t have to, we’re a sovereign state,” Nikos Voutsis, the powerful interior minister, told parliament.
Yes, and other sovereign states “don’t have to” give Greece any more money.
The municipal police force, which was disbanded 18 months ago, will be revived and several thousand caretakers at state schools, known as “guards”, are to be rehired.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who — as the previous government’s minister for administrative reform — implemented past cuts, said Syriza’s legislation marked a return to the clientelist practices of the past.
“It’s not just the hirings, but a lack of transparency . . . and the reversal of new disciplinary procedures that had proved very effective,” Mr Mitsotakis said.
Nikos Pappas, minister of state with responsibility for the media, said the reopening of the state broadcaster would include the rehiring of 1,500 employees at a cost of €30m to be covered from the auction of television licenses.
When Antonis Samaras, the previous prime minister, closed ERT in a deeply unpopular move, he called it a “haven of wasteful spending.”
Imagine if the US hired another 45,000 “workers” for NPR at a time when the old and sick couldn’t get public health care at hospitals. Perhaps those public school “guards” and state broadcaster “workers” will build some of that “infrastructure” that Greece needs.
I can’t wait to see how the left defends this move.
PS. I relied on sources like the “World Socialist Web Site” for this post, in case you were wondering.