Cyprus bank staff to stage protest
Bank employees in Cyprus will walk off the job for two hours and march towards parliament to protest against looming job and benefit cuts being made as part of an international bailout.
Hundreds of employees from across the country are expected to be bussed in for today’s demonstration.
Bank workers’ union ETYK says employee pension funds are not fully protected from a grab on large deposits in Cyprus’s two largest lenders, which was a condition of the country’s €10bn bailout.
The union also expressed fears of widespread lay-offs as the rescue package that Cyprus agreed with its euro partners and the IMF demanded that the bloated banking sector, flush with billions in foreign deposits, shrink drastically.
