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Spaniards strike against "unstoppable" job reforms

29 March 2012 20:09 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Spanish workers staged a general strike on Thursday to protest against labor reforms which the government declared "unstoppable" but many ignored the action, fearing for their jobs in a country with the EU’s highest unemployment rate, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Factories across the nation were silent and ports closed, while television and transport were disrupted by the strike against the austerity policies of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy - whom Spaniards elected by a landslide only four months ago.

Police arrested a number of protesters in Madrid while small-scale violence flared in Barcelona, Spain’s second city. Tourists were locked out of the Alhambra, a 14th-century Moorish palace in the southern city of Granada which is one of Europe’s great cultural monuments.

Strikers promised a wave of protests to confront Rajoy’s conservative government over reforms making it cheaper for companies to fire staff and dismantling a nationwide system of collective pay bargaining.

"We don’t have much hope, but this is just the beginning," said Trini Cuesta, a 58-year-old employee at a public hospital in Barcelona. "It’s not just about labor reform, we’re against policies that are provoking social and economic ruin. Social protests must rise."

Spain is tipping into its second recession since the end of 2009 and some observers expect at least another million people to join already swollen unemployment lines. The jobless rate is already 23 percent and almost half of under 25-year-olds are out of work.