With Greece desperate for solvent friends, Athens has been looking to Beijing for help in the fight against its crisis. But Chinese investors are setting tough conditions in return for their money, and many Greeks are unsure if the investments will be beneficial in the long run.
Dockworker Nikos Georgiou first started unloading ships on the docks in the Greek port of Piraeus 24 years ago. Today the modern terminals, where in good years more than 1.5 million containers are processed, are proof positive that the economically devastated country is still capable of pulling itself back together. Nevertheless, there is little evidence of hope or confidence, at least among the dockworkers of Piraeus.
The Chinese have called the shots there for the last 17 months. The Chinese state-owned company Cosco acquired the rights to the container port for 35 years, with an option for an additional five years. The insolvent country is to receive €3.4 billion ($4.6 billion) in return, a significant contribution to Greece’s battle against the crisis and a good omen for future financial support from Asia. But Georgiou takes a different view. “The conditions here are like something from the darkest Middle Ages,” says the former dockworker.
Georgiou, 46, now the president of the influential dockworkers’ union in Piraeus, says that the price for the China deal was too high for his fellow dockworkers. According to Georgiou, 250 people, or about one-sixth of all Piraeus dockworkers, have already been let go or forced into early retirement. Instead of employing experienced dockworkers at the going rate of €120 a day, Georgiou says that Cosco is only hiring unskilled laborers for €40-50 a day, without overtime pay for night or weekend work, of course, and certainly without any guarantee of employment.