Garbage went uncollected and hospital care was reduced in Spain yesterday as tens of thousands of public workers went on strike to protest against austerity cuts intended to rein in a public deficit that has rattled global financial markets.
Unions representing the country's roughly 2.6 million public workers, ranging from doctors to street cleaners, called the strike last month after the government unveiled another €15 billion in spending cuts over two years.
The austerity measures - intended to ease worries the country will need an international rescue package like the one provided to Greece earlier this year - include average cuts this year to public workers' salaries of five per cent.
They also include a freeze on their salaries next year, a suspension in automatic inflation-adjustments for old age pensions and the elimination of €2,500 tax break for couples that have a new baby.
The cuts were welcomed by the International Monetary Fund but they are an about-face for Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who had vowed to protect social policies despite a severe economic downturn.
They are on top of a €50 billion package of spending cuts announced in January designed to slash the public deficit to the eurozone limit of three per cent of gross domestic product by 2013 from 11.2 per cent last year, the third largest in the eurozone behind Greece and Ireland.
Roughly 75 per cent of overnight workers at places like health centres and retirement homes took part in the work stoppage, according to the General Union of Workers but the government put participation at around 15 per cent.
Minimum services were guaranteed by hospitals, fire stations and other emergency services.
The public sector strike is seen as a test of the government's resolve to push ahead with the austerity measures as well as a way for unions to gauge the level of support for a possible general strike for all workers.
Spain's two largest unions, the CCOO and the UGT, have threatened to call a general strike if the government unilaterally imposes labour reforms.
Unions, employers and the government have been trying to agree on the terms of the labour market reform but the talks have stalled in large part over union resistance to proposals to make it easier and cheaper to fire workers.
Last week Mr Zapatero said his government will approve its own version of a reform to the labour market unilaterally on June 16 even if no agreement is reached with unions on the plan.