Friday, October 1, 2010

Large demonstrations bring the General Strike to an end

Union leaders addressed the crowd in Madrid, while rallies were seen in all other cities

The day of Spain’s General Strike ended with large rallies in both Madrid and Barcelona.

In Barcelona the day had been marked by events from anti-system demonstrators who broke into and wrecked one of the most famous bookstores in the city, and engaged with running battles with police in the street.

Unions claim that 400,000 took part in the protest march in Barcelona at the end of the day, and several thousand shouted against the labour reform at a demonstration in Valencia. Other smaller demonstrations and marches were held in other cities across the country.

The expected war on words, or in this case numbers, has broken out over the numbers taking part in the main protest in Madrid. The unions claimed that it was half a million, but the Lynce counting system for the EFE news agency put it at 17,228. They took 850 photographs of the march using high resolution cameras to arrive at the number.

The two main union leaders, Ignacio Fernández Toxo and Cándido Méndez, insisted at the rally that the Government change its policies, with their speeches bringing the day’s events to an end. They called for the Government to ‘not commit suicide’ and return to left wing policies to fight the recession. Toxo insisted the that ball was now in the Government’s court. There were many placards calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation, something which the union leaders have never called for.

In summary, the day was ‘successful’ for the unions, and ‘uneven’ for the Government. It can be said that the seventh General Strike since Spain’s turn to democracy did achieve the shutdown of industry, but often only through the efforts of pickets, transport services were seriously disrupted, but the service sector was practically untouched.

Minister for Employment, Celestino Corbacho, declined to give numbers regarding those who joined the strike, but chose instead to praise the unions for their ‘responsibility’ in meeting minimum services. He described the incidents seen as those which could be expected during a General Strike.

Read more: http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_27345.shtml#ixzz115OROPaf

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