G. Dunkel
Sept. 29 was a day of worker protests throughout Europe. Thirty countries had some sort of protest over their respective government’s attempts to cut wages, benefits, pensions — and other gains that workers have won in a century of struggle — in order to solve the economic crisis.
The sharpest protests took place in Spain, where workers shut down almost all industrial production and a great deal of transportation, including air travel, and closed 70 percent of government services; in Belgium, where workers from all over Europe gathered to march through Brussels, the city which houses the headquarters of the European Union; and in Greece, the country in Europe hardest hit by the economic crisis with a debt load of over $300 billion.
The general strike that the two main unions, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and Unión General de los Trabajadores (UGT), called in Spain was the first since 2002 and marked a break between the unions and the Socialist Party of José Luis Zapatero, which runs the government. The CCOO and the UGT wanted to protest austerity measures that include pay cuts for civil servants and making it easier and cheaper for companies to fire their workers.
“This strike is more necessary than ever,” one union representative, Roberto Tornamira, on a picket line near Madrid’s elegant Plaza de Cibeles, told the Associated Press.
Striking workers staged a sit-in outside a bus garage in the Spanish capital, screaming “scabs” at drivers trying to get out. Some strikers scuffled with police. Spanish National Radio reported 11 people injured nationwide.
“We are here to explain to our colleagues the reason for the strike and urge them to take part and not work,” said one striker, Mercedes Ramírez, amid a din of whistles and bullhorns.
Even Spanish grandparents struck Sept. 29. Since more than half of all Spanish grandparents look after their grandchildren every day, Manuel Pastrana, the Andalusian leader of the UGT, called on them to strike, saying, “We want grandparents to strike to prove they are a key part of the way this country functions.” (The Daily Telegram, Sept. 27)
The 100,000 workers who marched in Brussels came from over two dozen countries, ranging from Ireland and Scotland to Poland. The European Commission is currently considering rules to force all the countries in the EU to keep their spending down, even if it means imposing austerity.
Belgian cops arrested 218 “troublemakers” during the march, but most of them were later released.
“This is the start of the fight, not the end,” said John Monks, general secretary of the European Trades Union Confederation, which organized the events.
“Why should the workers have to bear all the costs of this crisis?” asked Kazimierz Grajczarek, 57, a miner from Bielsko-Biala in Poland, who came to Brussels by bus. “They give all the money to the banks and we have to carry the costs.” (The Guardian, Sept. 30)
In Greece, the railroad workers called a three-day strike beginning on Sept. 27. Hospitals and doctors went to emergency services only on Sept. 29 and there were rolling strikes in mass transit. Both major trade union confederations organized a big rally of 100,000 people in front of the EU offices. These actions amplified the effects of the truckers’ strike, which was in its third week.
Over 3 million people marched in France on Oct. 2 to protest the proposal of the Sarkozy government to raise the age when people can retire. The marches and rallies took place in hundreds of places, from small islands off France’s western coast to all its major cities. A notable feature of the marches, according to the French television station TV2, was the large participation of youth, many from a West or North African background, who see increasing the retirement age as increasing youth unemployment.
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