Huelga General !!

All of the hype and then it finally came. The huge public banners, the fliers littered all over, and the newspaper articles built the anticipation of it. The first two weeks I had wondered what was 29-S? It was spray painted everrrywhere-- on sidewalks, trains, buildings, bridges. Soon enough, I made the connection between 29-S, the 29th of September, and the upcoming General Strike. I was pretty interested because I had never seen a strike before (unless you count the 10 people with signs in podunk Bemidji).



Before the actual strike, I talked to several Spaniards on their views of it, whether they were going to go, and whether they thought it was a good idea. The same ideas were pretty recurrent: the unemployment is terrible, the economy is awful, drug and alcohol use is up, and the youth are in trouble (or are trouble?). Some weren’t going to strike because they had to work. One girl wasn’t interested in the strike expect for being enthusiastic that it cancelled her classes (haha). Everyone seemed a little hesitant, not sure whether to support it or not. Everyone was unhappy with the government’s austerity measures and believed something had to be done, but would a strike fix it?



The strike turned out relatively tame in Sevilla and they even paused to take their siesta ;). There was no rioting just peaceful marching. Even still, it was a little overwhelming. To see so many people crawling towards me with their red signs made me feel like I’d slowly be rolled over backwards and mashed. I felt really little and foreign because I knew that I didn’t have a real grasp on the issues. It wasn’t just a buildup of the past month (as it was for me) because some of those people had been out of work for months and some of those people were very discontent with the government.



It might have been tame in Sevilla, but look what happened throughout the rest Spain, particularly Barecelona:


According to Telegraph.co.uk:
--The airport was hit the hardest. Two-thirds of all flights to and from Spanish airports disrupted.
--80% of high-speed train trips, all mid-distance, and 75% of commuter trains were cancelled
-- 90 per cent of taxi drivers in Barcelona were on strike
--According to Spanish Unions, more than half the workforce (10 million) went on strike. That’s “unquestionable success" in their eyes.

Where does the tension come from?
--Spain has 20 percent unemployment. Those under 30 are particularly hit hard and one in every three person is unemployed.
--Of Spaniards in their thirties, more than half still rely on financial support from their parents
-- “The government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero introduced severe austerity measures including the unpopular labour-market overhaul in a bid to bring down the budget deficit from 11 per cent last year to within the 3 per cent of GDP limit set by the European Union by 2013.”

That’s sounds pretty rotten to me.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/spain/8032647/General-strike-in-Spain-to-protest-against-austerity-measures.html