Greek anti-austerity protesters took to the streets of Athens on Sunday evening ahead of a parliamentary vote on an omnibus bill aimed at securing further bailout aid this spring.

"We say no to the destruction of public services and the welfare state," chanted demonstrators outside the parliament building during the rally organized by the main labor union of civil servants ADEDY against the planned new tax hikes and unprecedented job cuts in civil services.

The contentious bill foresees the dismissal of some 4,000 civil servants and 15,000 by 2014, overturning for first time in the country's modern history a constitutional guarantee of a job for life for employees in the public sector.

Under the plan aimed to reduce costs and upgrade civil services, incompetent and corrupted public servants will be gradually replaced by younger and better skilled employees.

The new legislation, which comes after a new deal with international auditors earlier in April, will also open up more professions and markets and facilitate taxpayers with debts to tax authorities and social security funds to pay them off in up to 48-month installments.

In combination with a planned reduction by 15 percent on a controversial emergency property tax, the aim is to ease the burden on households and businesses suffering from a six-year long deep recession.

"The measures included in this multi-bill will boost the competitiveness of Greek economy. They will lead to an increase in exports and investments and restore liquidity," Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said while addressing the assembly during Sunday's debate ahead of the vote scheduled for after midnight.

The conservative-led coalition government, which holds a 167-seat majority in the 300-member strong body, argues that the adoption of the new set of austerity and reform policies is a one-way road to the disbursement of further vital tranches of financing under bailout deals clinched since May 2010.

Athens expects that the ratification of the draft law with the latest "prior actions" requested by EU/IMF lenders this spring will unlock the delayed aid worth 2.3 billion euros as early as Monday during the Euro Working Group meeting and the rest of aid installments totaling 8.8 billion euros later in May.

Protesters on the streets on Sunday said that with the implementation of the new measures Greek society will sink deeper in misery.

As Greek officials forecast a return to growth next year, citizens expect a further increase on the record high unemployment and poverty rates triggered by the harsh austerity and reform program introduced three years ago in return for rescue loans to avoid a chaotic default and potential exit from the euro.

"The multi draft bill will bring exactly the opposite. While economy needs further funding to restore development, the bill takes away more than 6.5 billion euros from the pockets of Greek citizens and intensifies the problem of liquidity. They keep on with the austerity policies, instead of adopting growth policies," Tassos Basteas, a public servant at Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP), told Xinhua on Syntagma square.

With his income reduced by 50 percent in two years following rounds of salary cuts and tax increases, his wife and two children jobless for months and the burden of a house mortgage heavy on his shoulders, Basteas is pessimistic about the next day under the current plan.

"The only solution is to implement a policy that is exactly opposite to the three memorandums imposed so far; measures that will safeguard our incomes, will decrease the taxation to the middle and lower classes and will deal with the severe debt problem we have. I believe that the debt problem should be solved by imposing development stipulation and of course by having a further debt haircut," he said, as deputies debated the draft bill.

George Kontostavlos, teacher in a private school, joined Sunday's demonstration determined to continue protesting until his voice will be heard.

"We came to protest against the draft bill that affects labor relations in the sector of the public education, and leaves without job thousands of people working in the public sector. The policy imposed in the whole area of Southern Europe demolishes the foundations of Europe, dismantles labor rights and the only thing we can do is to overturn it," he said amidst banners with anti-austerity slogans.

"The majority of the Greek parliament, which consists of the three coalition government, drives Greek society to a deadlock. This must change," he said.