"We will come back onto the streets, we will strike if necessary. This has only been made possible by the unity of action of the UGT and CCOO unions all over Spain. Let no one rob us of the fight! Let no one rob us of our unity!"

The Spanish trade union leaders have finally set a date for a 24-hour general strike against the government’s labour counter-reform for March 29. On Sunday, March 11, 1.5 million people marched again in around 60 cities across the country in militant trade union demonstrations. The government and the right-wing media have reacted hysterically denouncing the strike as “anti-patriotic.”

Hundreds of thousands marched in Spain on February 29 in student and trade union demonstrations against austerity cuts and in protest at brutal police repression against students in Valencia. The trade union leaders, under pressure from a very angry mood form below, are now openly talking about calling a general strike, possibly on March 29.

Around two million people marched in 57 trade union demonstrations all over Spain on February 19 against the counter-reform of the labour law imposed by the right-wing PP government. Now the pressure is on the trade union leaders of the CCOO and UGT to step up the pressure by calling a general strike.

The results of the Spanish elections on Sunday November 20 represented a massive defeat for the Socialist Party (PSOE) which had introduced austerity measures to make the workers pay for the capitalist crisis, rather than a victory for the right wing Popular Party (PP) which will now have to introduce even more savage austerity cuts in the face of the acute crisis of Spanish capitalism.

Hundreds of thousands of people, certainly well over a million, took to the streets of Spain on October 15 to express, once again, their indignation at the crisis of capitalism and the austerity plans which are being introduced to make working people pay for it.