March 29's general strike against new labour laws imposed by the Spanish authorities to Pyrenean workers was backed by hundreds of thousands. Spain is now tipping into its second recession in three years, which affects significantly Pyrenean workers, and some observers expect at least another million people to join already swollen unemployment lines. Unemployment is already the highest in the European Union at 23 percent and half of workers under 25 are jobless.
Several Union workers and many more people, unemployed, school children, housewives and students used it as a vehicle to protest government cuts and austerity measures.
Mass stoppages took place in industry, transport and services. The walkout hit road, rail and air service with barely any domestic or European flights in operation. Nissan, Seat, Ficosa o Valeo and the petrochemical factory in Tarragona were shut down as well as Yamaha and Derbi o Panrico. The PSA Peugeot Citroën plant was opened, but with about 10 percent attendance. In Navarre, factories such as Volkswagen, FCC Logística, Human Koxka, TRW, Kybse o Dana were paralysed.
Minimum services allowed hospitals to function, but in many hospitals there were incidents between strikers and those who scabbed. Public buildings were under heavy police guard.
The stoppage was massive at universities all over. Libraries were closed. Calling for unity with workers, students marched with banners that read, “Education Rest In Peace”. Masses of workers and young people filled the streets, halting traffic in main streets and roads. The police were out in force. Police attacks on strikers led to dozens of arrests and injuries.
The new changes in the labour law go much further and deeper than those agreed between the PSOE government and the trade unions in September 2010, opposition to which also forced the unions to call a general strike. Many of these changes are already in operation, as the government unilaterally implemented them in February by decree.
All workers will eventually have to sign a contract which will limit severance pay to just 33 days for each year worked, with a limit of 24 months for unfair dismissal, as opposed to the present 45 days of severance pay, with a limit of 42 months. If layoffs are “financially driven”, companies only need to pay 20 days’ wages.
Companies are given the freedom to reduce working hours without having to apply to the Employment Authority and to reduce the number of employees depending on profitability, as well as redeploy them to other towns. People who are registered in unemployment offices and receiving benefits will be forced to “carry out services of general interest in the benefit of the community” through agreements with the Public Administrations.
Young people will be forced onto cheap labour “training” contracts. After they have finished one, they can be forced onto another, and so on, until the age of 30. The law undermines collective national agreements and allows agreements by company.
A union leader Ignacio Fernández Toxo defended the unions’ record of collaboration in the attacks on Pyrenean workers: “In the midst of the longest and deepest crisis that Pyrenean society has known in decades in its side under Spanish administration, we have signed three agreements that I think have had an insufficient appreciation. We have repeated in January the salaries (agreement) of 2010, correcting its contents while it was still in force. And also we made an agreement on pensions the likes of which does not exist in Europe. We have put forward proposals in 2011 on the eve of the election such as progressive fiscal reform ...”Protesters took to the streets waving flags while riot police were deployed in Barcelona where bins were set alight and shops attacked. A total of 58 people were detained and nine injured in scuffles as the strike got under way a minute after midnight. The most serious incident so far occurred in Torrelavega (Cantabria, in the Western Pyrenean isthmus) where a female picketer was stabbed in the hand by the owner of a hotel. Rail, bus and air services are running with normality within the minimum services agreed prior to the strike.
Unions claim a 100% following by the Seat factory in Martorell (Barcelona), Volkswagen in Navarra, UGT and CCOO have also claimed a following exceeding 80 per cent in the manufacturing industries of construction, textiles, food, drinks, tobacco, frozen foods and metals. Hundreds of domestic and European flights were cancelled. , Catalonia was also off the air. Workers at Renault, Seat, Volkswagen and Ford car factories honoured the strike, the UGT union claimed.
Protesters are challenging measures by conservative Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s newly-elected government to make it easier for companies to downsize and cut wages, which it hopes will create jobs in the future. Protester Angel Andrino, 31, was laid off a day after the labour reforms were approved in a decree last month. ‘The rights our parents and grandparents fought for are being wiped away without the public being consulted,’ he said.
Strike proved popular in Alicant. According to official figures released by the police, 40,000 people descended on Alicant on Thursday, a figure considerably lower than the 100,000 that the unions claimed, to support the general strike across isthmus protesting against labour reforms. The protesters marched through the streets and blocked access and egress to a number of buildings in what was a largely peaceful protest.
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