Restaurants on strike today – Their demands

Professionals in the industry are now calling for the closure of restaurants.

As the Panhellenic Federation of Restatory and Related Professions POESE notes in its announcement, the demands of the Sector are:

• Adjustment of fines and their transfer to the offender.

• Change of repayable deposit to NON-refundable.

• Participation in decision making with participation in the competent committees.

• Energy cost and rent subsidy.

• Subsidy of employer contributions or suspension of employment contracts.

• Exemption from the payment of municipal fees.

• Reduction of VAT to 6%.

• Continuation of the subsidy of loan installments.

• New funding similar to those of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

Structural measures

1. Special Secretariat or Food Service Chamber.

2. Resolving labor costs with special regulations in distortions of labor legislation that do not take into account the high intensity of additional costs of the sector (night, evening, holidays, weekends) and its uniqueness, among all jobs.

3. Rationalization of the industry with structural changes.

The Food Service Professionals Circle also calls for participation in and support of the strike, arguing that the industry is being instrumentalized. In a statement, POESE states that the industry since the beginning of the pandemic crisis, has shown full empathy and has contributed greatly to the protection of Public Health, strictly implementing (with few exceptions) all measures of self-protection of customers and employees. “Unlike other gathering places (Churches, stadiums, mass transit), the catering industry has to show high vaccination rates despite the cost and inconvenience in the operation of businesses,” says Nikolaou