SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Tuesday December 21 2010 PUBLIC service workers demonstrated outside the regional parliament on Tuesday as MPs approved budget cuts of € 800 million. by JAMES TWEEDIE Members of the regional separatist Intersindical Canaria, the left-wing CO.BAS and the anarchist CNT trade unions protested outside the parliament building in the centre of the regional capital Santa Cruz. Six members of the IC, including regional Union Action Secretary Antonio Sardá (pictured, to the left), briefly chained themselves to a lamppost to symbolise their enslavement to EU-dictated austerity measures. Voting down various amendments from the Socialist Workers' Party, regional president Paulino Rivero's ruling coalition of the nationalist Canarian Coalition (CC) conservative Peoples' Party (PP) approved the 2010 Autonomous Community General Budget Bill. The legislation will see cuts of € 200 million to the regional education budget and € 300 million to healthcare in a region...

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Tuesday December 21 2010 ANGRY Chicharreros protested noisily outside Santa Cruz town hall on Tuesday as the council tried to resurrect its unpopular PGO planning by-law. by JAMES TWEEDIE About one hundred residents of Tenerife's capital staged a noisy demonstration outside the town hall as councillors debated amendments to the latest Plan General de Ordenación . From nine in the morning to the early afternoon, the protesters blew whistles and horns and chanted slogans through loudspeakers to make themselves heard across a police cordon to inside the council chamber. The PGO sparked outrage when it was first introduced one year ago, leading to marches of more than 10,000 people through the narrow streets of the small regional capital. Mayor Miguel Zerolo and Councillor for Urbanism Luz Reverón insist that the by-law was designed to regulate the height and density of buildings. But residents were outraged to discover late last year that almost half of the ci...

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Saturday December 18 CANARIAN trade union leaders vowed on Saturday to fight “tooth and nail” against government austerity measures. by JAMES TWEEDIE Speaking at a thousand-strong protest rally in Tenerife's capital Santa Cruz, CCOO general secretary for the island Mari Carmen Martínez threatened a further general strike following those in June and October this year. The demonstration was part of a co-ordinated day of action by Spain's two largest trade union federations CCOO and UGT against cuts to public service budgets, job losses, pay reductions and plans to raise the retirement age to 67. Some 2,000 people also demonstrated in Las Palmas, the capital of the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria. Speaking from the bandstand in Plaza del Principe, UGT Tenerife general secretary Lidia Quintana said that the weakest members of society were being made to pay for the global economic crisis. “We all have to tighten our belts,” she said, "not just the p...

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Thursday December 16 2010 THE CANARIAN United Left announced a campaign in aid of small businesses on Thursday. by JAMES TWEEDIE The party's activists will hand out leaflets over the festive season urging shoppers to buy in small shops and build the city. The party argues that, while big chains may be able to undercut them on price, small shops offer a better deal in terms of Convenient location, safety, trust and friendly customer service. The leaflets show a picture of a perfume bottle, with the slogan: “Good things come in small packages. Buy responsibly this holiday season. Buy in small shops – build the city.”

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Tuesday December 14 2010 DOCTORS and nurses protested in Tenerife's capital Santa Cruz on Tuesday night against regional government cuts to health services. by JAMES TWEEDIE Several hundred doctors and nurses, mostly members of nursing union SATSE and regional federation Intersindical Canaria, marched from the central Plaza Weyler to the nearby seat of the Canarian parliament. A cohort of pallbearers, followed by mourners, carried a coffin bearing the slogan: “R.I.P. Public Healthcare.” The regional government, a coalition of the conservative Peoples' Party and the nationalist Canarian Coalition, is currently debating a budget cut of €312 million – almost 12 per cent of the regional health budget – to be voted upon on December 20. This would be in addition to cuts of €72 million earlier this year. Some 2,000 nursing jobs are under threat and doctors face swingeing cuts in both their basic salaries and night duty rate. The pay cut would come on the heels ...

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Thursday December 9 CANARIAN junior doctors published an open letter to patients on Thursday giving their reasons for strike action later this month. by JAMES TWEEDIE The letter, entitled 'Perdon' (sorry) was released by the Grupo de Protesta de MIR Canarias, which represents resident trainee doctors in the archipelago's hospitals and health centres. It asked patients to support the doctors' campaign against regional government plans to cut their basic wage and night duty rate. The threatened pay cuts would come on top of a five per cent salary reduction and a pensions freeze for all public sector workers imposed by the central government in Madrid this summer, a move which sparked a national one-day public sector strike on June 8 (pictured, below). Currently doctors earn an average of € 1,100 per month basic, plus between € 8.91 and € 14,82 per hour – depending on seniority – for gruelling 17-hour overnight duties, which follow a normal seven-h...