The Ministry of Education announced that it has extended the deadline for the registration of administrative employees to 2pm today, citing “increased traffic” and “technical problems”. In Parliament the Minister of Education Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos claimed that more than half of administrative employees, about 1,000, have already registered their details and appealed for the reopening of universities.
While administrative employees have been registering their details, they have been challenging the government policy. While the employees at the National Technical University of Athens conceded that they are legally forced to register irrespective of their reactions and struggle, they could not agree to officially support registration. Instead they continued with their strike and left it up to personal choice.
So far, the Ministry of Education claims that about a quarter of NTUA administrative employees (230) have responded to the call and registered their details. This means that the Ministry needs at least 200 more to register, since it intends to dismiss 428 employees of the 800 NTUA’s employees to be suspended.
In response, the administrative employee unions have refuted the allegations that they are registering their details on the Ministry’s website or that there was an “overwhelming majority” in the votes that were. The employee unions of the eight universities affected by the suspension and dismissal plan intend to send the Ministry 1,250 declarations of disobedience to the registration call.
