Loading ...Athens, Greece – Hundreds of Greek gold miners and technical staff are preparing to stage “powerful demonstrations” against the left-wing Syriza government, unions told Al Jazeera. Their employer, Canada’s Eldorado Gold Corporation, announced days ago that it would lay them off and utilise a key mine in northern Greece after years of government obstruction.
“We’re not going to take this lying down,” the miners’ union chief, Yiorgos Hatzis, told Al Jazeera.
“Everyone is against the government, which won’t let us work. This indignation has gone on for a year. Everyone understands that it is this government that stands between our bread and us,” Hatzis said.
Eldorado will dismiss all but a handful of the 688 people working on its Skouries mine in the Kassandra peninsula in northern Greece at the end of the month because, for three years, the Greek government has delayed issuing a building permit for the gold processing plant there. A further 500 workers would have been hired to build the plant.