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By

John Catalinotto

A 24-hour general strike, involving more than 80 percent of the workforce on a countrywide level, stopped large sections of the economy in Spain on March 29. The leaders of the two major union confederations that called the strike, the UGT and the CCOO, provided the numbers.

Unions in Galicia, the Basque Country, the Canaries and Catalonia also called their members out, as did the more radical and grass-roots union organizations on a federal level, such as the CGT and the CoBas.

The strike was protesting the “labor reform,” which really means a change in labor laws that makes it easier for the bosses to fire workers. Spain’s workers already face an unemployment rate of more than 23 percent. The rightist parties now in office and the so-called socialist PSOE backed these new anti-worker laws.

In addition, hundreds of social organizations backed the strike. Starting in mid-May last year, “the indignant ones,” that is, the mostly unorganized youth who suffer from nearly 50 percent unemployment, started seizing central squares of dozens of cities and making political demands. Though the police managed to clear most of the plazas, the movement still has an impact on the class struggle.

As a consequence, the strike was much stronger than the general strike of Sept. 29, 2010, and stronger than the general strike of 2002. Though the center-right government and the bosses tried to minimize the strike’s success, the union leaders said that the industrial sectors of practically all cities were stilled and the assembly lines at the Volkswagen, SEAT, Opel, Ford and Nissan factories were stopped. Also the airports in Madrid and Barcelona, and port areas in 30 harbors were struck, along with the railroads.

In regions of the country where labor militancy combines with the desire of the local population for political independence or at least autonomy from the centralized Spanish state, the strike action was especially strong. In the Basque Country, for example, the Basque unions say that 90 percent of workers were out in the industrial sector, with Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and Michelin closing completely.

Electricity use dropped 36 percent for the whole region, a strong sign of a successful strike.

There were also massive demonstrations in the four major cities of the Basque Country — Bilbao, Pamplona, Vitoria and San Sebastian.

Throughout the Spanish state, there were mass demonstrations backing the strike. And police, in an attempt to break the strike, intervened brutally against picketing strikers. Reports say 58 strikers were arrested and some injured.

The CCOO and UGT leaders are demanding that the government open negotiations with them to discuss changing the new labor law. If not, they say, there will be another labor action by May 1.

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