Two jobs, €6,200 net/m: Greek FinMin official supporting lowering minimum wage

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Economy, Politics, Society

The issue of further lowering the minimum wage in Greece takes tragicomic features. Not only because the government reassures through Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras, that there won’t be any further lowering below €586 gross (€480 net) per month, even though EU Monetary commissioner Olli Rehn said a revision was planned for 2014.
But because the man who openly defended to take the last piece of bread form the mouth of workers and employees, the general secretary of Finance Ministry, Giorgos Mergos, the man with two jobs in times of unemployment at 26%, is in the happy position to cash €6,200 per month, Net!
As general secretary of Finance Ministry he get €3,700 net per month (€ 5,000 gross).

Additionally he receives another €2,500 net from his position at the Financial Stability fund.
A total of €6,200 net. That is, he earns in a month so much as a minimum-wager gets in one year!
Now wonder, Giorgos Mergos cannot understand the pain of the other. He sees Greek development only in wages cuts, but in the wages of the other.

  Giorgos Mergos
The situation got even more absurd, when main opposition party, left-wing SYRIZA claimed Mergos receives three salaries: the two mentioned above plus one as professor at Athens University.
In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Giorgos Mergos spoke of “slander” saying he received only two wages, not three.
“For the second consecutive day I become target of populist and misleading attacks. Today, some people, particularly SYRIZA MP Dimitris Papadimoulis  discovered that I have been receiving three salaries,” angry Mergos noted obviously annoyed of being brandmark as someone with many jobs. “My salary was suspended form the University when I was named general secretary of the FinMin, ” he wrote stressing that also his “predecessor at the ministry held a position at the FSF.”
PS. ah, those offended Marie Antoinettes…