The EL expresses its support for the general strike that the main Spanish Trades Unions, UGT and CCOO have called upon on the 29th of March in response to the regressive labour reform approved by the right wing (Popular Party, PP) government.
For the PP it is not enough with severe austerity measures imposed following the diktat given by the European Commission, the financial markets and European Central Bank (ECB) and now this right wing government has approved a labour reform without any negotiation with the trade unions that in reality means to take away all labour rights conquered in Spain during the years of democracy and going back to the Franco’s dictatorship where the entrepreneurs applied theirs rules against the workers, to convert in precarious the workers conditions and make global wages, direct and indirect, very cheap.
This Spanish government endeavour is coherent with similar steps adopted in the rest of Europe through the neoliberal policies profiting the financial crisis, dismantling the Welfare State and charging on the workers the cost of the crisis through the austerity measures. That is the reason why the EL shows their reject to such measures and supports wholly all the social and workers mobilizations and protests that are taking place as the only way to recover the real solution. The only solution is to recover the central role of the public intervention with huge public investment through the tax to the financial transactions and to place as the main aim of the ECB the creation of millions of jobs, stable jobs and well paid. This is the way to meet the social needs of people while maintaining a framework for collective solidarity.
All these proposals, the Party of the European Left intends to discuss with the forces and personalities of different backgrounds and countries in an "alternative European summit" on 30 and 31 March in Brussels.
Brussels the 27th of March 2012