PPC staff transfer plan to be addressed at three-way meeting

A three-way meeting involving government, main power utility PPC and PPC union representatives is expected to be held either today or tomorrow in a bid to resolve a dispute prompted by a company plan aiming to transfer utility employees from units that are currently not fully operational to ones where their services would be better utilized.

The labor ministry, to be represented at the meeting by its secretary-general Andreas Nefeloudis, supports the transfer PPC staff members away from sidelined facilities such as a PPC unit in Keratsini, a district of Piraeus, and mines currently not being exploited, including Amynteo, now closed as a result of last week’s landslide.

ETE, PPC’s technicians union, has fought to delay any moves, including the transfer of 77 employees from the Keratsini plant, currently not operating. The Keratsini transfer plan entails relocating staff members from the Piraeus district to PPC units on islands, including Crete. The union is seeking a solution whose impact would be milder on the lives of workers and their families.

A court verdict on the Keratsini issue is expected to be delivered this Friday. Participants – Nefeloudis with PPC and ETE representatives – at the meeting, today or tomorrow, will attempt to forge a commonly acceptable solution ahead of this verdict.

It is a different story for the Amynteo mine, until now employing roughly 600 persons. It is estimated that around 200 of these are now needed as a result of the landslide. This smaller team would work on extracting 4.5 million tons of upper-level lignite, only a fraction of the total deposit, previously set aside for inspection by archaelogical authorities.

Just days ago, PPC chief executive Manolis Panagiotakis assured company mine workers that their services would be utilized in other regions where the utility has pressing needs.