More than a hundred thousand demonstrators protested across Spain Sunday at labour reforms introduced by the country’s conservative government ahead of a general strike called for March 29.
Two of Spain’s biggest unions, the UGT and CCOO, called for rallies ahead of the strike to increase pressure on the government to scrap cuts to unemployment payments and moves for a more flexible workforce.
Unions said rallies took place in 60 cities and towns across Spain, including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville.
They said up to 500,000 demonstrators turned out in Madrid alone, with another 450,000 in Barcelona.
Police put the turnout at 30,000 in Madrid; 17,000 in Barcelona; 15,000 in Seville; 15,000 in Malaga; 9,000 in Grenada; and 5,000 each in Valencia, Cordoba, Almeria and Cadiz.
Read it at Raw Story
Mass demonstrations across Spain oppose labor ‘reforms’By Agence France-Presse
The government hopes the reforms will boost job creation and revive the economy. Spain’s unemployment rate is the highest in the developed world at nearly 23 percent, with the rate at almost 49 percent for people aged under 25.... Spain has seen only five general strikes since the country returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that this is a case of the downtrodden workers rising up against their capitalistic employers . . . . I read somewhere recently that in Spain there is a very sharp divide between those in secure jobs one the one hand, and “outsiders” who are condemned to unemployment or temporary contract work on the other.
ReplyDeleteI.e. my guess is that the “socialist” “left-wing” demonstrators you see in picture in that article are the the privileged rather than the under-privileged.
Haven’t got the URL of where I read that, but I’ll plonk it here if I find it.
I'm spanish and pretty much 'confirm' what Ralph says. There is a massive divide caused by different labour laws, and unions, specially the state dependant ones which are the majoritary and more popular, which form part of the political game (CCOO and UGT) only protect the workers, not the unemployed.
ReplyDeleteI doubt the reforms are gonna fix the labour market though, only demand can do that and emigration (as sad as it sounds), Spain simply does not have the productive capacity and export industry to finance its imports costs and keep expanding credit and maintain its current population living standard probably.
With a national currency it would probably be easier, but it's not the panacea either, countries which are not USA can't finance their deficits forever so some inflation and living costs would go up (but real estate would helpfully deflate more). Now that's being done via internal deflation, if it weren't because cost-push inflation on imports of global demand we would be in a deflation (not only price, but also monetary).
There was a lot of capital waste with the bubble and a lot of artificial jobs without real demand backup created by it in construction related jobs and all the monney it channelled not only into oligarchs hands but also in a good percentage of the population. There is also a generational problem both with incomes, real estate & debt apart of the job market.
It's a complicate problem.