ATHENS, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Panhellenic Seamen's Federation (PNO) announced on Saturday the suspension of the week-long anti-austerity strike which has disrupted supplies to the islands.
Seafarers across Greece have walked off the job since Dec. 2 calling for rolling strikes in protest of pension and labor reforms and tax increases.
The government has pledged to examine their requests and continue talks.
The PNO's strike action triggered tensions with farmers on the islands which have been cut off from the mainland.
Farmers on Crete island who could not send their produce to the mainland for several days held a protest on Herakleion port on Friday evening, which later became violent.
Protesting farmers threw flares at strikers on a ship docked at the port and set fire to a kiosk, while seamen used fire hoses against the crowd.
The harbormaster was slightly injured during the incident, local authorities said.
The seafarer's strike was held amid a new wave of protests by various professional groups and pensioners in recent weeks against the new round of austerity measures by the government in exchange for further aid by Greece's creditors.
PNO unionists have said that once the initial plan to alter the special taxation status of seamen is carried out, they would lose at least 55 percent of their monthly income to taxes and contributions to social security funds.
"Greek seamen would go extinct and a pillar of the Greek national economy would collapse," PNO warned.
