MORE than 1,000 people marched through central Athens today as civil servants all across Greece staged a 24-hour strike in protest against the government’s austerity measures.

The country’s largest public-sector union, the Civil Servants Confederation (Adedy), organised today’s action, the first major strike since Greece left the bailout programme in August,  to demand the Syriza government ends its austerity programme and the public-sector pay freeze.

“We demand the pay freeze be rescinded, a 2-3 per cent increase (in salaries) to end 10 years of cutbacks and for 13th and 14th salaries to be restored,” Adedy chairman Ioannis Paidas said, in reference to the annual bonuses slashed by then ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement government in 2010.