Huelga: General Strike

Unemployment in Spain: 23%, or 5.5 million people.  Among the youth, unemployment is almost 50%. That includes my host father, who was a construction worker, and who now spends his days cleaning our apartment and watching television.  He collects money from the government every month in unemployment, but he would prefer to be working.  He explained, quite passionately over dinner Wednesday night, that the workers are going to lose their rights from the government.  His opinion of Spanish politicians is that they are out of touch with the citizens; he thinks it will take about 5 years before things turn around and the economy picks back up.  In the meantime, all we can do is wait.

On Thursday, March 29, a general strike was organized across the country in protest of the expected "impuestos," or taxes, that are going to come into affect after President Rajoy presents the 2012 budget.  The increased taxes come as Spain needs to reach certain "deficit targets" as established by the European Commission. 

Cerrado por Huelga: Closed for strike. 

As my professors explained, the protests were a way of people speaking out against the government and supporting the workers who are going to be affected.  Some teachers cancelled class, others did not.  At the end of my grammar class on Tuesday morning, my teacher explained about the strike that was going to happen and why.  As she lowered her voice and closed the door to the hallway, she told us that she was going to participate because she believed it was not fair that low-paid workers will be most affected; therefore class would be cancelled.

Peaceful protesters making their way up Gran Via

When I woke up Thursday morning (well, afternoon, since my 9am class was cancelled!), things seemed fairly normal.   The streets were a little bit dirtier than usual since nobody has cleaned the streets the night before, and there were huge garbage piles next to dumpsters since nobody has collected the trash.  I noticed there were stickers and signs on shop windows that read "HUELGA," meaning "strike" in Spanish.  Then after my afternoon classes, I noticed the major road by my house was closed off.  Policemen were directing traffic, and groups of people were in the streets.  I turned the corner and suddenly, much to my surprise, there was a huge mass of people carrying red banners, slowly making their way up Gran Via.  To be honest, it made me a bit nervous having heard that there were violent riots in Barcelona earlier that day.  My host mom had told me at lunch "you better not go and take pictures, it's dangerous and your camera will be broken!" Well, I took pictures anyway, and I was fine.

Normally the busiest intersection in the city, Plaza de Espana was blocked off and free from cars around 8:30 pm Thursday evening

How did this affect my friends?  I have a friend trying to fly out of Madrid to go back home to Japan, and he's still waiting for a flight out.  My roommate was supposed to go to Paris this weekend, but because there were no trains or buses to Madrid, she had to stay in Salamanca and will not be refunded for her ticket.  At Atocha, the major train station in Madrid, trains were blocked yesterday and nobody could leave. I have a friend from Italy coming to visit me today (Friday), and she couldn't get a morning train to Salamanca because the train was full and tickets were sold out; the trains are NEVER full.  It is because so many people were stuck yesterday and had to wait until today to leave Madrid.

To read more, watch this video on the BBC website, and read this article by the New York Times.

Today I kept finding little reminders about the day before. These are some of the stickers that still haven't been scraped away, and this is a brochure that my host dad let me read: