Tens Of Thousands Join General Strike

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Wednesday September 29 2010

TENS of thousands of Canarians joined Wednesday's national general strike with mass demonstrations in Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

by James Tweedie

More than 10,000 workers and pensioners marched through Tenerife's capital Santa Cruz in protest at public-sector wage cuts and an occupational pensions freeze, plans to raise the retirement age to 67 and the new labour reform law which allows employers to lay off staff more easily and cheaply.

The main demonstration was organised jointly by the CCOO and UGT, Spain's two biggest trade unions, although the anarchist CNT and regional INSUCAN unions, United Left (IU) party and Assembly For Tenerife campaigning coalition were present in numbers.

One supermarket on the march route that had remained open closed its doors in response to chants of “come on, come on, let's close it down!” from protesters.

A few hundred also attended an early static protest in Plaza Weyler, while the Canarian separatist IC and anarcho-syndicalist CGT held separate demonstrations that evening.

IU member Eparquio Delgado said that he was “very glad” that the turnout for the strike had far exceeded his expectations, despite media rumours that participation would be low.

He said: “This is the biggest demonstration for labour rights I have ever seen in the Canaries.”

Public transport was the sector most affected by the strike, with only 40 per cent of scheduled services running.

A language teacher from Santa Cruz said that ordinary people were “very concerned” about wage cuts and the threat of redundancy.

The recently-passed Labour Reform Law reduces statutory redundancy pay and allows employers to lay off workers if they take two weeks' sick leave in any two-month period.

Unemployment in Spain is already running at 20 per cent – about four million people – and at a crippling 30 per cent in the underdeveloped Canary Islands.

Rents and house prices have tumbled in the archipelago as young people move back to their parents' homes.

Spain's Socialist Party government introduced the measures in response to European Union (EU) demands for budget-slashing austerity measures in return for financial assistance during the global recession.

The EU is seeking powers to overrule democratically elected national governments when it comes to setting budgets, by requiring them to deposit billions of taxpayer's money in a central fund under the control of the EU Commission in Brussels.

A commission spokesman said: “What we want is a system that's more rules-based and has less room for political discretion.”

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