Workers across southern Europe yesterday launched an unprecedented string of strikes to battle austerity cuts, paralyzing factories and grounding more than 700 flights.
Unions called general strikes in Spain and Portugal, the first such action across the Iberian Peninsula, along with temporary walkouts in Greece, the epicenter of the debt crisis, and Italy.
It was the first time workers had agreed on simultaneous strikes in four European countries, said the European Trade Union Confederation, which organized the “Day of Action and Solidarity.”
“In some countries, people’s exasperation is reaching a peak,” confederation general secretary Bernadette Segol said.
“We need urgent solutions to get the economy back on track, not stifle it with austerity. Europe’s leaders are wrong not to listen to the anger of the people who are taking to the streets,” she said.
Spain, the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy where one in four workers is unemployed, was holding its second general strike in eight months to protest draconian budget cuts.
In the main squares of Madrid, the main unions strung up banners declaring: “They are taking away our future.” They deployed pickets overnight at airports, markets and bus and railway stations.
“We are launching a day that will be a milestone in the history of European unionism,” said Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, head of the country’s largest CCOO union.
“It is a strike against the government’s policy of unemployment, misery and to stop this path toward the precipice,” he said.
Police set up metal barriers at an access road to parliament in Madrid, where activists called an evening rally.
Strikers froze factories, including Volkswagen’s car plant in northern Navarra and a Ford plant in the eastern Valencia region, Spanish media said. Buses and trains ran with sharply reduced schedules.
In neigboring Portugal, Lisbon’s metro service was out of service, while ferries across the River Tagus and trains across the country ran skeleton services.
Hospital staff joined the action, with up to 90 percent of staff reportedly abiding by the strike call.
Portugual’s unions have called marches and rallies in about 40 towns and cities against the government’s austerity policies.
Legislation in both Spain and Portugal require workers to provide a minimum service in essential industries, but airlines canceled many domestic and international flights.
Greece is the epicenter of the eurozone’s debt crisis, but its unions are focused on the national crisis and its protest is limited to a three-hour work stoppage and a rally in Athens.
Italian unions have also called a four-hour walkout.
Union-led rallies were also being held in support of the day of action in France, Belgium and in Poland, where workers decry “social and wage-dumping” in their country.
In Germany, viewed by many in southern Europe as the paymaster behind the austerity drive, the union federation DGB has called protests across the country, including in Berlin and Frankfurt.
“For now it is mostly people in southern Europe suffering from a crisis they are not responsible for, but the consequences will surely be felt in the rest of Europe,” it said.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS