The strike grounded flights and extensively disrupted providers, whereas giant protests had been additionally held in different cities throughout the nation.
Clashes have damaged out in Athens throughout a basic strike referred to as throughout Greece in response to a rail catastrophe final month.
Protesters hurled petrol bombs at a police cordon close to parliament.
Riot police responded with tear fuel and stun grenades throughout the transient flare-up of violence that disrupted giant, peaceable demonstrations.
There have been no instant studies of accidents or arrests.
The strike grounded flights and extensively disrupted providers, whereas giant protests had been additionally held in different cities throughout the nation.
Clashes between youths and police additionally erupted within the southern port metropolis of Patras.
The strike saved ferries to the Greek islands in port, left hospitals operating with emergency workers, halted public transport providers and led to class cancellations at state-run colleges.
Unions have rallied behind railway employees’ associations which have staged rolling walkouts because the head-on prepare collision in northern Greece on February 28 that left 57 folks lifeless and dozens injured.
“This authorities has had 4 years to repair issues with the rail community, however as a substitute of proudly owning as much as that duty, they’re blaming everybody else,” Popi Tsapanidou, a spokeswoman for important leftist opposition social gathering Syriza, informed personal Skai tv.
The primary protests had been held in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest metropolis, and within the capital Athens, the place hundreds chanted “this crime is not going to be forgotten”.
Shops and banks lowered their shutters when the protesters filed previous because the capital was delivered to a standstill.
All kinds of labour associations — from these representing attorneys to supply drivers — joined the strike.
The federal government, which faces a parliamentary election earlier than the summer season, says rail providers will restart on March 22 and might be restored regularly till April 11, with extra workers to watch security and obligatory velocity discount guidelines alongside sections of the observe.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s centre-right authorities has seen a robust lead in opinion polls lowered in current weeks over its important rival, Syriza, with the 2 sides additionally locked in an ideological debate over how one can reform Greece’s antiquated rail community.
Mr Mitsotakis has promised clearer boundaries between privatised providers and the authorities overseeing them, in search of help from European Union specialists in drawing up the modifications.
His political opponents argue that the poorly managed dismantling of companies below state management has compromised rail security.
