General Strike in Spain

The day of Spain’s General Strike ended with large rallies in both Madrid and Barcelona.

The two main union leaders, Ignacio Fernández Toxo and Cándido Méndez called for the Government to ‘not commit suicide’ and return to left wing policies to fight the recession. Toxo insisted the that ball was now in the Government’s court. There were many placards calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation, something which the union leaders have never called for.

The day was ‘successful’ for the unions, and ‘uneven’ for the Government. It can be said that the seventh General Strike since Spain’s turn to democracy did achieve the shutdown of industry, but often only through the efforts of pickets, transport services were seriously disrupted, but the service sector was practically untouched.

At least 82 pickets had been arrested in total across the country by 4pm, by the end of the day it was over 100.

rally = concentración................................resignation = dimisión................shutdown = cierre
union = sindicato......................................successful = con éxito...................pickets = piquetesleft wing policies = politica de izquierda..... .uneven = desigual, irregular.......disrupt = perturbar, desbaratarplacard = pancarta ..................................did achieve = sí que consiguió