Greek subway staff end nine-day strike after police raid

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Striking subway workers in Athens returned to the job Friday, hours after the Greek government used riot police to evacuate holdouts from a train depot, ending a bitter standoff over new austerity measures.

The nine-day strike - which knocked out a system serving more than a million people a day - was the biggest labour unrest Greece's uneasy, conservative-led governing coalition faced since taking over last June.

It was only overcome after authorities resorted to issuing a rare civil mobilization order to workers who had defied a court ruling that their strike was illegal. Thursday's mobilisation order meant that staff refusing to return to work risked dismissal, arrest and jail time.

Though the subway trains started running again, the city of some four million still lacked bus and trolley bus services, as unions launched rolling strikes in sympathy with their colleagues.