The main unions have announced that they will call a General Strike across Spain this Thursday 29th of March, in protest at what they call the “destruction of the welfare state” by the new PP government.
They say that their ideas for solving the crisis (basically, making it impossible to fire anyone) are being ignored by the government, which is following a rather more Anglosaxon path of free market liberalisation. Another little gem of an idea which was ignored was a special work contract for companies with fewer than 25 employees – their idea was to have a “rising scale” of layoff fees, on the basis that for every quarter worked, you accumulated five days redundancy pay. How the hell is that going to encourage people to hire more employees?
This will be the sixth General Strike in the post-Franco era, but possible the most ignored one ever. After all, about one in every five working Spaniards don’t actually have a job to stop going to in protest, so about the only people who will walk out are going to be the government workers who fancy a day off.
Spain has a special category of champagne socialist union leader who, as they get ferried about in chauffeured driven Mercedes from meeting to lunch, earnestly discuss “social revolution” and “the empowerment of the masses”. About as much use as a chocolate teapot in hell.
Anyway, don’t fly, drive, bank or, basically, try to do anything on the 29th as anyone with a cast iron work contract will be in the bars, enjoying themselves, and making life impossible for those of us who don’t suck at the teat of government money.
An impromptu poll on elmundo.es shows that of almost 30,000 readers, 77% say they won’t strike.