Strikes, protests as workers’ anger grows in Europe
By
G. Dunkel
Published Oct 11, 2010 6:10 AM
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.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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