About 4,000 mine workers and their families protested on Thursday outside the Ministry of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy in Athens over the Greek government’s expressed intention to stop works of the Hellas Gold mining operation in Skouries, northern Greece. The miners banged their hard hats to the ground and shouted slogans asking for an “honest compromise.” Their spokesperson said they don’t want a dialogue with any government member other than Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The protesters then moved toward downtown Athens with stops at the Canadian mining company offices, the European Commission offices, the Greek government headquarters and then reached the Greek Parliament building to hand their petition to the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, activists and anarchists who oppose the mining operation, and have repeatedly protested violently against the miners, have organized a protest rally at 6:00 pm on Thursday in front of the occupied rectorate building of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens. Since the university building is close to the parliament, police are afraid that there might be a clash between miners and activists if the two rallies collide. The protesters fear they will lose their jobs since the government is fighting the private mining company on environmental grounds and they have temporarily revoked the construction permit of a plant in Skouries. This is the first major challenge on labor issues the leftist SYRIZA-led government is facing. So far, certain cabinet members have accused the mining company for encouraging the protests. On their part, the Canadian company claims that the Greek government had no legal grounds in revoking the construction permit of the Skouries plant.
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