• Tens of thousands in ‘May Day’ marches in Madrid, Barcelona and other cities
• Leadership threatens general strike if 2012 labour ‘reform’ law not overturned
Leaders of Spain’s principal labour unions yesterday lamented the inability of leftwing parties to form a coalition “government of change” following Dec. 20th general elections and said organized labour will be forced to recur to a general strike if the labour law passed unilaterally in 2012 by the conservative Partido Popular (PP) majority in Congress is not overturned in the next legislature.
Tens of thousands of labour supporters joined marches to commemorate International Labour Day in dozens of cities across Spain, including the capital Madrid, where a march from Plaza de Cibeles to Puerta del Sol took place under the banners of the country’s two largest unions, the Comisiones Obreras, or CCOO (Workers Committees), and the Unión General de Trabajadores, or UGT (General Union of Workers). A separate march by the smaller anarcho-syndicalist Confederación General del Trabajo, or CGT (General Confederation of Labour of Spain), took place across town.
In Barcelona, the UGT’s new general secretary in Catalonia, Camil Ros, told marchers that if the new government that takes power after the upcoming June 26th second-round general elections does not overturn the PP’s labour reforms passed in 2012, organized labour will do it themselves by any means, including calling a general strike for the autumn.
► Read More in Spanish at El Diario and El Periódico …
► ► CLICK ABOVE TO WATCH VIDEO ► ►
Click here to Sign Up for Progressive Spain News Updates via E-Mail ► ►