4 October, 2010
Hundreds of thousands of trade unionists voiced their anger across Europe last week and the week before against the growing number of austerity measures being proposed by governments. Demonstrations occurred in 11 European cities on 29 September.
A general strike by 70% of all workers occurred across Spain also on that day that saw 10 million people participate, and 80,000 protesting trade unionists from 24 countries converged in Brussels on 29 September. The actions were advanced by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which fears workers will for years pay the price of reckless speculators who caused the financial morass.
Instead of budget cuts affecting social and employment programmes at a time of already high joblessness, the ETUC is calling for jobs and economic growth as the catapult to recovery. Participating trade unions fear that workers will be the biggest victims of austerity measures, brought about by an economic crisis that was set off by bankers and traders, many of whom received big government bailouts.
Part of the German IGBCE Delegation
“This is a crucial day for Europe because our governments, virtually all of them, are about to embark on solid cuts in public expenditures,” said ETUC Secretary-General John Monks in Brussels last Wednesday.
“They’re doing this at a time where the economy is very close to recession, and almost certainly you’ll see the economy go back into recession as the effects of these cuts take place.”
The Brussels protest, coincidentally, came on the day the EU Commission proposed levying large fines on governments that fail to reduce public spending. That proposal comes when several Member-States began flinching at making social cuts in the face of mass street protests. The commission wants to fine countries that surpass the EU’s debt ceiling of 60% of GDP.
Brussels police barricaded banks and the headquarters of the EU as streams of unionists marched by, mostly without incident. Among those marching were 400 Romanian police officers, marching under the banner of their union. Five days earlier, they had surprised many by joining a mass civil society march in Bucharest, where demonstrators protested 25% wage cuts on all public-sector workers.
Romanian Police Union in Brussels
The 6,000 participating police turned the Bucharest manifestation on the Interior Ministry, causing Interior Minister Vasile Blaga to resign.
Also protesting in Brussels were scores of German and Polish coalminers, who specifically called on the EU to delay its plan to make coal-producing Member-States cut their coal subsidies to power plants. Across Europe over the past two weeks, workers have taken to the streets to protest wage cuts, budget slashing, unjust tax increases, and pension-cutting austerity measures by governments seeking to control debt.
Manifestations were held in Ireland, Latvia, Poland, Serbia, and Greece, where doctors in hospitals staged a 24-hour strike. In Slovenia, 29 September was the third day of a general strike by roughly half of the country’s public-sector workers. In the Czech Republic on 21 September, 40,000 trade unionists protested a proposed 10% wage cut for all public workers, as well as planned sackings of workers, abolishment of wage guarantees for longtime workers, and introduction of performance-based pay.
Perhaps the biggest European protests last week occurred in Spain with the general strike. With unemployment at a European high mark of 20%, the Spanish government of Socialist Prime Minister Jóse Zapatero last May introduced a €15 billion austerity package that includes a 5% reduction in civil service pay, cuts in pensions, increase to the retirement age, and cuts to government funding.
Led by the national labour centres CC.OO and UGT, Spanish trade unionists answered by staging the country’s first general strike since 2002, causing a halt to transportation, daily newspapers not to publish, and television to go off the air. The 29 September strike came one day before Zapatero presented his 2011 budget to parliament.
From European Metalworkers' Federation
Commenting in a UK newspaper on the EU Commission’s tough reprisal to fine governments who do not adhere to austerity measures, former Danish Prime Minister and European Socialists Leader Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said, “Governments are not always right. If governments were always right, we would not have the situation that we have today.” Rasmussen accused the commission of lacking “an understanding of how ordinary people are suffering.”