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Spanish public workers strike against cuts
AFP - Wednesday, June 9
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Spanish public workers strike against cuts
MADRID (AFP) - – Garbage went uncollected and hospital care was reduced in Spain on Tuesday as tens of thousands of public workers went on strike to protest against austerity cuts intended to rein in a public deficit that has rattled global financial markets.
Unions representing the country's roughly 2.6 million public workers -- ranging from doctors to street cleaners -- called the strike last month after the government unveiled another 15 billion euros (18 billion dollars) in spending cuts over two years.
The austerity measures -- intended to ease worries the country will need an international rescue package like the one provided to Greece earlier this year -- include average cuts this year to public workers' salaries of five percent.
They also include a freeze on their salaries next year, a suspension in automatic inflation-adjustments for old age pensions and the elimination of 2,500-euro tax break for couples that have a new baby.
The cuts were welcomed by the International Monetary Fund but they are an about-face for socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who had vowed to protect social policies despite a severe economic downturn.
They are on top of a 50-billion-euro package of spending cuts announced in January designed to slash the public deficit to the eurozone limit of three percent of gross domestic product by 2013 from 11.2 percent last year, the third largest in the eurozone behind Greece and Ireland.
Roughly 75 percent of overnight workers at places like health centres and retirement homes took part in the work stoppage, according to the General Union of Workers (UGT) but the government put participation at around 15 percent.
Minimum services were guaranteed by hospitals, fire stations and other emergency services.
The public sector strike is seen as a test of the government's resolve to push ahead with the austerity measures as well as a way for unions to gauge the level of support for a possible general strike for all workers.
Spain two largest unions, the CCOO and the UGT, have threatened to call a general strike if the government unilaterally imposes labour reforms.
Unions, employers and the government have been trying to agree on the terms of the labour market reform but the talks have stalled in large part over union resistance to proposals to make it easier and cheaper to fire workers.
Last week Zapatero said his government will approve its own version of a reform to the labour market unilaterally on June 16 even if no agreement is reached with unions on the plan.
"If there is no agreement the government will put in place a reform before the end of June. The labour reform has the potential to boost our growth," Finance Minister Elena Salgado told news radio Cadena Ser on Tuesday.
Market fears that sluggish growth and a lack of zeal on the part of the government to cut spending could cause Spain -- Europe's fifth-largest economy -- to follow Greece into a debt crisis has added to stock market volatility and downward pressure on the euro single currency in recent weeks.
Last month ratings agency Fitch cut Spain's credit rating one notch from the maximum AAA to AA+ because poor growth prospects threatened its public finances, just one month after a similar move by Standards and Poor's.
The Spanish economy entered recession at the end of 2008 as the global financial crisis accelerated a collapse of its once-booming property sector, and only emerged with tepid 0.1 percent growth in the first quarter this year.
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