Labor-reform protestors slam “incompetent politicians”

Madrid isn’t Athens and — except for one minor skirmish, when a group of demonstrators threw eggs filled with yellow paint at labor leaders — Sunday’s massive march against labor reform went without a hitch.

Carrying placards calling for opposition to the “Guantánamo work system” that the Popular Party (PP) government recently passed via a decree, and criticizing the “incompetent politicians” who are paving the way for “mass firings,” demonstrators — the unemployed, young people, retirees and students — all had their reasons to take to the streets of the Spanish capital.

There were no doubts in Inés García’s mind. “This is the place where we have to be. The labor reform is the perfect excuse for a government whose strings are being pulled by the banks and big corporations who want to change our lives,” said García, a teacher.

Carmen Lucea, a dance instructor, charged that the European Union wants to push Spain into a corner as it has done with Greece. “We need to organize ourselves so that we can stop this any way we can. We have no other choice,” said the 52-year-old, who also explained that the crisis hasn’t really affected her private and public dance classes but that this is no reason for her to stay at home.

César, a 33-year-old unemployed sociologist, said that he thought that Labor Minister Fátima Báñez’s predictions that the reform would help the country’s 5.3 million jobless find work was “nothing but demagoguery.”

“When I get a job, I want to have a respectable contract, but with the new rules that isn’t going to happen.” César believes the government needs to go beyond reform. “You have to change everything because this system is rotten to the core, including the labor leaders who are closer to elected officials than the electorate.”

The labor reform is the perfect excuse for a government whose strings are being pulled by the banks and big corporations who want to change our lives"

García also believes that an entire transformation is needed. “Before, each teacher had at the most five students with special education needs in their classes; now some have eight or nine. And, of course, this adversely affects the time and attention they can be given.

“Everyone has been defrauded by this system. The only thing we can do is pass the contagion to one another in the hope that it will encourage us to change the way things are being run,” said García, who was wearing the official green t-shirt of teaching professionals who have been demonstrating against cuts in education by the Popular Party-run Madrid regional government.

Pedro Ramírez marched alongside his colleagues from Arcelor Mittal in Villaverde, a plant that the world’s biggest steel firm is set to close down. “They want to impose the American system on us, where workers have no rights,” the 50-year-old declared.