GREECE ground to a standstill today as workers staged a 24-hour stoppage over a deepening crisis of low wages and rising prices, while also condemning involvement in the war in Ukraine.

The strike was called by the country’s two largest unions, representing 2.5 million people in the public and private sector. 

“For the last 14 years, workers have been carrying the burden of a deep crisis that has affected everyone’s incomes and lives,” the private-sector GSEE union said.  

“As the years go by, the crisis is constantly deepening, the burdens remain, our rights are shrinking,” it said, referring to government attacks on labour law, including criminalising the right to strike. 

Last month, the union called for a 13 per cent rise in the Greek gross monthly minimum wage to €751 (£627) as inflation surged to a 25-year high of 7.2 per cent. 

But the government raised it by just 2 per cent to €663 (£553) in January, with conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis promising a larger increase on May 1.

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) general secretary Dimitris Koutsoubas said the strike was an important escalation of the class struggle and opposition to the country’s participation in imperialist war.

The party mobilised tens of thousands in anti-war protests last weekend as Greek workers maintained opposition to Nato and the militarisation of Ukraine.

And on Tuesday, trade unionists and communists blocked a train that was carrying US and Nato military aid bound for Ukraine from leaving the northern port of Alexandroupolis. 

In a tense stand-off, workers from Greek rail company TrainOSE have blocked the deadly cargo since it arrived there from western Poland on March 30. 

“For about two weeks now, there has been pressure on the employees of the engine room in Thessaloniki to go to Alexandroupolis,” the communists explained. 

Trade unions stepped in after the workers, who were refusing to maintain trains transporting Nato military equipment, were threatened by the employer.

“We condemn the employers’ threats against TrainOSE employees who refused to participate in the maintenance of the trains that are transporting Nato tanks from the port of Alexandroupolis,” the unions said in a resolution.

Last month, Italian airport cargo workers in Pisa blocked a shipment of weapons bound for Ukraine under the guise of humanitarian aid.

They said the deadly cargo was to be transported to US and Nato bases in Poland before being shipped to Kiev. 

In May 2019, dockers in Genoa stopped the Saudi ship Bahri Yanbu from loading with drones and other equipment that would be used in Saudi Arabia’s devastating war on Yemen.