The staff of the Deputy Ministry of Culture staged a spontaneous work stoppage to protest the actions of the Deputy Ministry’s Director General.
Specifically, as stated in a press release by PASYDY, the one-hour spontaneous work stoppage from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. is being held “in protest against the Director General’s repeated attempts to place the entire budget of the Deputy Ministry under his control, without any prior notification or consultation with either the Heads of the Departmental Divisions of the Deputy Ministry or the political Head of the Deputy Ministry, Ms. Klea Papaellina.”
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
“The Director General of the Deputy Ministry, through the change he seeks to promote in the Budget, aims to centralize control over the majority of the responsibilities of all the departments of the Deputy Ministry and to assume responsibility for the implementation of all projects and programs under his authority, thereby stripping the Departments of their autonomy and the Directors of their administrative role.”
“This development is causing deep and justified concern among the staff of the Deputy Ministry, as there has already been a targeted effort to disregard, marginalize, and sideline the Directors of the Deputy Ministry’s Departments on the part of the Director General, which, as it appears, is escalating through the changes being promoted in the Budget,” the statement adds. “Beyond the aforementioned detrimental change in the working conditions of the Directors, another cause for concern is that, should the proposed amendments be approved, the oversight, monitoring, and approval of all financial transactions of the Deputy Ministry will be concentrated in a single individual,” it continues,
“In addition to the above, the staff’s protest also stems from the repeated delays on the part of the Director General regarding the processing of approvals, resulting in the Undersecretariat’s actions either not being implemented or being delayed, as well as in the Director General’s constant interference in the work of the Deputy Ministry’s departments and his imposition of unilateral decisions regarding issues and matters whose handling falls exclusivelythe exclusive responsibility of the Directors of the respective Departments of the Deputy Ministry. At the same time, the Director General’s ongoing dismissive behavior toward all staff of the Deputy Ministry, which creates an intimidating, offensive, and hostile work environment, is also one of the main reasons for today’s protest.”
“As PASYDY, we call on the Administration of the Deputy Ministry to immediately take the necessary corrective actions to restore the smooth operation of the Deputy Ministry,” the statement reads. “Otherwise, we will have no choice but to take strong countermeasures,” the statement concludes.
