Civil servants in Spain begin one-day strike to protest wage cut

Spain’s public sector on strike

MADRID — Spanish civil servants banged drums, blew horns and chanted anti-government slogans Tuesday as they staged a one-day strike to protest wage cuts aimed at trimming a huge deficit and calming fears Spain is headed for a Greek-style debt crisis.

The stoppage was seen as a test of whether unions have the support to stage a full-blown general strike over labor market reforms the Socialist government says it will impose by decree very soon if the unions do not reach agreement on their own with management. The reforms are deemed critical to resurrecting Spain’s moribund economy and reassuring jittery investors who have sent the government’s borrowing costs soaring.

There were wildly differing figures on participation in the public sector strike: 12 percent of workers in the central government, according to the ministry that handles civil service issues, as opposed to up 80 percent, according to unions. This latter figure includes regional and local governments.

Spain has some 2.6 million civil servants, although few of them belong to unions.

The strike’s main event — an evening march to the front gate of the Finance Ministry in Madrid — was attended by a red flag-waving crowd of just a few thousand, and it had to cover a route of about 300 meters (330 yards), unlike much longer processions in other recent protests. After sunny weather much of the day, rain fell on the marchers.

Union leader Candido Mendez refused to say if the turnout was enough to say his forces could reasonably call a general strike. He said it is up to the government — and whether its reforms favor businesses or workers — as to whether unions take that step. “We don’t trigger strikes. We just convene them,” he said.

The civil servant wage cuts of an average of 5 percent are part of a plan to save €15 billion ($19 billion) this year and next.

The plan, which passed by just one vote in Parliament, has also frozen pensions and cut government investment in infrastructure and spending foreign aid.

The shift is a big U-turn for Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who had resisted spending cuts until he came under fierce pressure from the European Union, the IMF and even US President Barack Obama.

Now Zapatero face the twin ills of an oversized deficit that requires spending cuts and a sluggish economy that is saddled with a 20 percent jobless rate and needs help to stimulate growth.

One protester, Alfredo Barrero Sanchez, 55, who said he earns €1,100 ($1,315) a month, criticized the government for previously playing down the economic crisis and saying no cutbacks were necessary.

“This government is totally inept,” he said. “In the end, look what has happened to this country.”

Called to strike were workers in government offices, schools and hospitals but not public transport. Observance of agreed minimum services meant most workplaces functioned almost as usual.

In the protest outside Finance Minister Elena Salgado’s offices, Pepe Molina, 50, wore a sign that alluded to how much his monthly salary has gone down as of June: “I have been robbed of €80. How about you?”

“Lowering a person’s salary is the worst thing you can do to them,” he said. “If Zapatero is not capable of getting us out of this mess he should call early elections.”

The government is expected to unveil labor market reform proposals on Wednesday in a bid to loosen up a system that is widely criticized as rigid. The idea is to overhaul hiring and firing rules, so as to encourage employers to hire more and thus spur economic growth.