Spain's unions have threatened to call a general strike to protest over austerity measures aimed at reducing the country's deficit back to EU guidelines and calming markets.
'We radically reject this austerity plan and both unions are starting protests that could lead to a general strike very soon,' Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, the general secretary of Spain's biggest union Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), told reporters.
Earlier, the unions said they proposed calling a public sector strike for 2 June, after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said yesterday the government would cut civil servants’ salaries by an average 5% in 2010 and freeze them until 2011.
The government's plans to halt pension increases in 2011 was a breach of a previously agreed pension pact, CCOO's Toxo said, while the leader of Spain's second largest union, Union General de Trabajadores (UGT), said the government's austerity plan was devastating for growth and would increase unemployment.
'(The austerity measures) are a sharp blow to the chances of maintaining certain levels of consumption and will lead to delays in economic recovery,' Candido Mendez said.
Talk of a general strike has threatened Mr Zapatero's government on several occasions, although analysts question the extent to which the public would respond to a walkout.
'First of all, I don't think the unions will go so far as to call a general strike,' said Alistair Seymour, Director of Henderson Global Investments in Spain said.
'The unions are cosy with the current government and I think they are just firing blanks.'
In the event a general strike did take place, Seymour said there would not be wide public support.
A Spanish economist, who asked not to be named, agreed.
'At most a general strike, which I don't think is probable, would be a gesture on the part of the unions to save face. But it wouldn't have massive support from the public,’ the economist said.
'It certainly wouldn't be anything like what we have seen in Greece.'
