Spanish trade unionists were set to pour into the streets yesterday to protest against Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s attempts to reform a moribund economy that has left one in five Spaniards out of work.
Marches were due in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia in a show of union muscle designed to head off reforms to both generous labor laws and a state pension program that critics say are strangling growth.
It is the first time in six years that the beleaguered Zapatero, whose party has slipped badly in opinion polls, has faced a trade union rebellion. Unions hope hundreds of thousands will join the marches, which look set to kick off a long-running battle for Spain’s future.
With the economy still in recession after almost two years, Zapatero is now running a country with 4 million unemployed. A million Spanish households have no bread-winner and predictions for the future are grim.
The government forecasts that the economy will continue to shrink this year and some believe unemployment could rise to 22 percent.
Economists led by the head of the Spanish central bank, Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez, are demanding pension and labor market reforms in order to get Spaniards back to work.
But unions claim workers are being unfairly expected to shoulder the blame — and the pain — of recession and instead pin the responsibility on bankers and business leaders.
Some union leaders have already threatened a general strike if Zapatero tries to impose reforms.
“If it is done by decree, then the reply will be at that level,” said Javier Lopez of the Workers Commissions union.
Lopez’s union was to lead yesterday’s protests with Spain’s other main trade union, the General Workers’ Union. They have called a series of marches in cities across the country over the next three weeks.
The marches were sparked by Zapatero’s proposal that Spaniards delay retirement from 65 to 67 in order to ensure the long-term stability of the country’s pensions.
His announcement, at last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos, was seen as an attempt to calm markets and stop Greece’s debt crisis from engulfing Spain as well. But it provoked a furious reaction from unions, who said they expected pension reform to be negotiated with them first.
“This pensions business is a first warning about where they are coming from,” Lopez warned. “We will reply to each and every attack.”
Zapatero’s government has already withdrawn some pension reform proposals. But reform is needed to help bring down Spain’s bulging budget deficit, which hit 11.4 percent of GDP last year.
The prime minister is having increasing trouble meeting his twin aims of keeping both unions and debt markets happy.
“My government is characterized by its defense of social programs and for maintaining and extending workers’ rights in good times and bad, and that is how I will continue,” Zapatero said on Monday.
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