Spain's Public Workers Protest.Spanish workers blocked streets and railways in Madrid and other cities on Friday in protests against new austerity measures they said hurt ordinary people more than the bankers and politicians who caused the economic crisis.
As the Spanish government approved the deepest cuts in 30 years, including a second round of wage cuts and reduced benefits for civil servants, Spain's main unions called on public workers to strike in September.
The date of the strike will be announced at a later stage, the unions said in a statement.
Traffic was blocked in central Madrid for hours as hundreds of public workers - many wearing black t-shirts in support of striking miners or green ones for public school teachers - shouted "cuts for bankers, not workers" outside ministries and public offices.
Workers for state railway Renfe blocked train tracks in Madrid on several occasions throughout the day. Employees of local public TV station TeleMadrid blocked a highway outside the city.
Unusually, several policemen also joined the protests.
"Civil servants tolerated the first round of cuts because we wanted to show solidarity, but this has reached a limit," said Pedro, a 41-year-old nurse. "It can't always be the same people paying the price."
Friday was the third consecutive day of protests since Spain's prime minister Mariano Rajoy unveiled fresh austerity measures designed to slash 65bn euros from the public deficit by 2014 as he tries to dodge a full state bailout after requesting a European rescue for the country's ailing banks in June.
"Spain is going through one of its most dramatic moments," deputy prime minister Saenz de Santamaria said after a cabinet meeting at which sales tax hikes and spending cuts were approved.
Admitting that the austerity measures were "neither simple, nor easy, nor popular," she said the government would try to enact the measures "with the maximum justice and equity."
More than one hundred public workers gathered, whistling and booing, outside the presidential palace where Rajoy's ministers convened to approve the new budget plan.
Spain's civil servants - whose wages were cut 5 percent on average in 2010 in the first round of austerity cuts - are usually paid 14 times a year.
The government is now axing an extra payment made just before Christmas. The prime minister, his cabinet and lawmakers will also have their salaries cut.
At the local, regional and central level, there are around 3 million public servants in Spain, many of whom earn as little as 1,000 euros a month.
The conservative government has come under mounting criticism that the austerity measures are hitting the middle and working classes the hardest.
In Valencia, several hundred justice ministry workers shouted "hands up, this is a stick-up" at a protest rally.
In the Puerta del Sol in downtown Madrid, about 500 civil servants gathered, about half dressed in black. Some women wore veils, as if at funerals. Protesters blew whistles and horns.
"The government should go after the big companies that don't pay tax and bankers that have committed fraud and have run this country to the ground," said Pablo Gonzalez, 52, who works for the Madrid regional government.
"Instead, we have to pay."
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