Workers the scapegoats in Greece’s debt crisis

Thomas Walkom, Opinion, The Toronto Star:

Wednesday’s austerity vote by the Greek parliament solves nothing. The world economy is still on a knife edge. More to the point, the Greek crisis highlights a question being raised across the world. Who should bear the cost of recession?

In Canada, the focus has been on public sector workers. Sharp practices by millionaire bankers in New York and London may have triggered the global slowdown. But in this country, public attention focuses on the pensions of postal workers earning $54,000 a year

So, too, Europe. The root causes of the Greek crisis are complex and stem largely from the adoption of the euro as a common European currency. That encouraged banks to lend more than they should have to weak-sister nations like Greece.

It also has to do with the peculiarities of a country whose previous government falsified economic statistics and whose populace treats tax avoidance as a human right.

But, so far, European public anger has focused almost entirely on Greece’s workers: They make too much money; they retire too early. Who do they think they are?

Austerity packages didn’t solve Ireland’s debt problems. As the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs noted in a report last week, they are unlikely to solve Greece’s.

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