General strike brings Portugal to a halt: 75% of workers stay home.

[Hannah Bell]

Yesterday’s general strike in Portugal brought the country to a halt. Millions of workers from the public and private sector stayed away from work to protest ahead of a vote in Congress on the Socialist Party (PS) government’s budget and austerity measures.

The opposition Social Democratic Party said it would not vote against the budget, ensuring its adoption Friday.

Yesterday’s general strike was called by the Communist Party-led General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP) and the PS-aligned General Union of Workers (UGT), the first time both unions have called out their members for nearly three decades...

CGTP officials said 75 percent of all workers in the country took part in the strike...This is a new development—up to now strike action has largely been confined to the public sector.

Portugal’s largest exporter, Volkswagen's Autoeuropa plant, which produces 500 cars a day, came to a standstill. Trains and buses in the capital Lisbon came to a halt. Many shops were shut. Almost all workers employed by city and town municipalities stopped work. No flights took off or landed at the country’s airports. Ports were also closed. Other public services—health care, education, the post office and banking—operated minimal services...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/port-n25.shtml

[Radical Activist]

1. I did a google news search to find articles from more credible sources.

Cool story.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

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[Name removed]

4. Deleted sub-thread

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[malaise]

15. The day is coming when there will be a global strike

Working people will not sit down and take this crap.

[reggie the dog]

20. why would the world socialist website not be credible?

the socialist party is the main left wing party in many eu countries after all

[hfojvt]

3. come on, it is Portugal - 75% of their workforce is what? 35 people?

Kidding, but they do have less people than Ohio.

[readmoreoften]

5. There are 11 million people in Portugal. If we could get 75% of 11 million to strike, it'd be a

huge feat. Actually, getting 40 people in the US to strike is a huge feat. Getting over 8 million people to strike is A Big Fucking Deal.

[Hannah Bell]

6. ohio 11.5 million. portugal: 10.6 mill. nyc: 8 mill.

when was the last time 75% of workers in either ohio or nyc stayed home?

would it be meaningless if they did because they "weren't big enough"?

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. What a bunch of Crap......

My Ohio democracy gives me a better democracy than Portugal



Agreed.


WTF has OHIO done lately?

[Hannah Bell]

8. no idea what you're talking about.

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. No attack on you

posted in the Wong area, edited I mean wrong


I still don't know why Ohio is the god send to the world?

[Hannah Bell]

10. lol. I don't know why, but "the Wong area" made me laugh. Like this was the area reserved for

the Wong family's comments.

[TheWatcher]

13. Don't get too upset about it.

I'm sure there's a few episodes of "Dancing With The Stars" on your DVR to help salve this brief intrusion into your Bubble.

If not, check Netflix. there is some good mindless Reality Distraction as well, and there should be some Real Housewives re-runs on Bravo.

I'll call Portugal in the morning, as well as the rest of Europe, and warn them firmly not to do this again, so that your Enchanted World is not disturbed.

These peasants can be such a bother, I know.

:eyes:

[immoderate]

11. I think this is significant.

Some of the European strikes have been ineffective. They used to be better. The French sure fizzled.

The Portuguese, eh? Who wudda thunk it?

--imm

[sabrina 1]

12. The French didn't fizzle, their government didn't list to the people.

That government will lose the next election and the new government will probably reverse the decisions made or face the same fate. This is what happened in Iceland. The head of the EU has been instructing the leaders of these governments 'not to listen to the people' on these austerity programs. That has infuriated people enough to start calls for countries to get out of the EU.

I think things are going to change drastically over the next few years in Europe and I would not be surprised to see the EU broken up. The only country that seems to have benefited from it is Germany.

[Starry Messenger]

14. I don't think the French fizzled.

Every show of radical action builds on the last one. I guess that's why people in this country don't strike, they think it's a one shot fix?

[Hannah Bell]

16. They'd gotten close to shutting down a lot of the country, then backed off.

The gov't passed the changes to their social security system & promises more austerity.

Score: Gov't 1, workers 0.

I don't understand the point of mass actions that don't exact a price beyond inconveniencing people, & my assumption, when apparently successful strike actions are suddenly shut down is that the leadership shut them down after secret deals. I don't see that any demands were actually made on power at all, so I start thinking -- well, what was the point?

Maybe I'm overly suspicious or missing something.

I take your point about things building on each other, but my idea of protests & strikes is that ideally, a demand is made on power.

[reggie the dog]

19. The law has been voted but it must now be "appliqué"

or applied and they have not made that move yet.... plus the president's approval is down to 25% and there is no more talk of further austerity unlike in other countries. plus any socialist running against sarkozy is now polled to win the election, any one of them!

[Hannah Bell]

21. when you say applied, what does that entail?

it was my impression that sarkozy had made a series of speeches about going forward with austerity?

[reggie the dog]

24. sarkozy made a series of speeces but nothing new was in them

he only wants to replace one out of two civil servants retiring but cannot fire any of them,
as for the retirement law we need a minster to give a "directive" telling us the manner in which the "new law will be applied".....until then the last law is still applied (enforced if you will).

plus sarkozy has 25% approval rating so what he calls for in his speeches will likely not come to fruition as the regions are basically all but one or two controlled by the socialists.

[Hannah Bell]

27. good to know, thanks for the info.

[Starry Messenger]

22. reggie has a good answer below, this is shifting public opinion.

My take was that it also encourages actions in other countries. Now we see this effect happening all over Europe...it's rebuilding mass action *culture*, which has been very much in abeyance the last few decades. Until people are realigned to realize their power, and do this over and over again, we're not going to see much shifting. That's my .02.

[reggie the dog]

18. we didnt fizzle the new law has been voted and signed

but in france it still has to be applied by the minister in charge of it, until then the old law is still used, and they have not applied the new law yet. i think they are scared. before the strike the only socialist candidate polling ahead of sarkozy was Dominique Strauss Khan (IMF guy) now pretty much any person who is socialist is polling ahead of sarko, even the woman who lost to him last time! fizzled my ass, public opinion is changed, sarko has a 25% approval rating! AND THE LAW IS STILL NOT BEING APPLIED

[immoderate]

23. That's good.

I had heard that the unions "tanked."

--imm

[reggie the dog]

25. over 75% of the public still wants to retire at 60

seeing as the socialists said they will do that if elected they are popular. thanks partly to the unions organizing.

[blindpig]

26. Wrong, this is just the beginning.

The working class of Europe is aroused, our turn is coming.

[reggie the dog]

17. this is great

give em hell my portuguese sisters and brothers