Greece sacks LARCO head for not cutting salaries

ATHENS: Greece sacked the head of its state nickel producer LARCO yesterday for refusing to reduce workers' pay, the first state company chief to lose his job in the fight to cut costs and stay hooked up to an international bailout.
The Finance Ministry said in a statement that the president and CEO of LARCO, Anastasios Barakos, was asked to resign for flouting the law.
"He did not apply legislation requiring a reduction of salaries across the wider public sector," the ministry said.
Barakos was not immediately available for comment. LARCO is one of the world's top producers of nickel.
Ministry officials said all state corporations were told in 2011 to reduce pay by 35 percent over two years, with 25 percent in the first year, in line with reductions in the core civil service.
They said Barakos had written back that his company should not be included in the law and refused the apply the cuts.
State companies normally pay much higher wages than the main state sector. One of the coalition government's main targets to meet pledges to international lenders to shut down, merge or privatize these costly companies.
Data released yesterday showed Greece's jobless rate climbed to a new record in May, underlining how austerity prescribed to slash deficits is hitting the economy on which recovery depends.