Thousands of union members from the private and public sectors gathered this afternoon at the Klafthmonos Square in Central Athens in an anti-austerity protest in solidarity with the rest of Europe which also held similar protests in Madrid and Rome. The two workers unions are the GSEE (private sector) and the ADEDY (public sector).

Dionysis Giakounelos believes these protests have been successful as pressure groups to make the government aware of the plight of the workers in light of the harsh austerity measures being imposed by the troika. He cited as an example workers who stand to lose their jobs without as much as substantial pension to help them survive.

Alexandra Papadopoula, 26 years old, sales assistant of a private company said young college graduates like her have to accept jobs with salaries that are not commensurate to their expertise due to lack of jobs. In fac,t thousands of new graduates are currently unemployed.

Another distressed office employee is Lena Leva, 31 years old, who said they have no security of tenure. "We are actually waiting until Friday for an announcement from our office on whether or not we will be retained. This is due to cost cutting measures by our company," she said. ( Lena, her mom and her colleagues agreed to be photographed- 8th photo).

Photos were taken from 12:45pm to about 1:30pm November 14). They later marched to Syntagma Square.

Seventh photo is Kostas Tsikrikas, President of ADEDY.