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On 23 February, thousands of workers protested in Spain's major cities against government spending cuts and plans to raise the pension age from 65 to 67. The rallies were the first mass union protests in the six years of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist government. The main demonstration was in Madrid, where according to union officials 60,000 protested. The rallies were part of a nationwide campaign organised by the two main union confederations, CCOO and UGT. Over 100 demonstrations have been planned in the two weeks at the end of February and beginning of March. The union! s argue that the public pensions system is in good health and does not need the drastic reform being proposed. They also argue that the government should do more to increase the minimum wage and reduce precarious employment conditions as ways of boosting payments into the social security system. English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/354; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe ... Spanish: http://www.ugt.es/actualidad/2010/febrero/c12022010.html |
For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.