Greece’s civil servants and seamen are holding a 24-hour strike to protest against planned reforms to labour laws and threats to their pensions, Reuters has reported.

Public sector workers have held a protest rally in downtown Athens, following Greece’s main public sector union ADEDY’s call for a general strike on Monday.

The strikes have called for the government to stop assessments of workers and administrative structures that threaten the survival of their fund and cuts to their pensions. They have also voiced their anger towards labour market regulations which have curbed their rights.

Workers gathered at Klafthmonos Square at 11am to march to parliament, while beating drums and chanting: “Tax the rich!”, “our needs above their profits” and “no more cuts”.

Additionally, on Tuesday, the PNO union representing Greek seamen announced its plan to hold a 24 hour strike on Thursday, also protesting pension cuts and job insecurity. As a result of this, all ferry services are out of operation to and from the Greek islands and to Italy today.

PNO also called for dockworkers to engage in the industrial action.

"Workers and the poor are always the ones to pay the cost of the crisis," ADEDY said in a statement.

The public sector union’s strike comes before a nationwide strike called by Greece’s largest private sector union GSEE that will take place on 8 December.

Greece has been relying on rescue loans from three international bailouts since 2010, when its market plummeted as rising borrowing costs meant it was locked out of bond markets.

However, discussions between the government and creditors are on hold as Greece has accused bailout lenders of suggesting cuts that would be a “social disaster”.

Today, a parliamentary committee begun discussions on next year’s budget which predicts 2.7 per cent growth, but raises taxes including value-added tax to increase revenues.

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