Protests multiply against cuts in Spain…(Get Ready For Ours!!)
By Roland Lloyd Parry
News.Yahoo.com
July 16, 2012
Hundreds of Spanish firemen, police officers and nurses marched yelling through the streets Monday, denouncing as “robbery” the pay cuts enforced under Spain’s latest fiscal emergency plan.
“Hands up, this is a robbery,” cried protestors as they blocked a major thoroughfare in central Madrid in a demonstration organised through messages on social networking sites such as Twitter.
The latest protests erupted after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy last week announced new pay cuts and tax increases, aiming to save 65 billion euros ($80 billion) in order to lower the public deficit.
Spain is suffering its second recession in four years, with an unemployment rate of more than 24 percent.
Cuts to public budgets are already affecting services such as schools and hospitals and critics say Rajoy’s new austerity measures will worsen economic conditions for ordinary people.
Among the latest steps is a cut in the Christmas bonus paid to civil servants, equivalent to a seven-percent reduction in annual pay.
“It’s intolerable. The problems of the Spanish state don’t stem from civil servants… It’s unfair and shameful,” said nurse Miguel Contreras, 28, who came to protest in the capital Monday from the central Castilla-La Mancha region.
The Rest…HERE
