Portugal Workers Observe 24-hour Strike against 2011 Austerity Budget
Portugal’s two main unions’ joint call for a 24-hour strike is going well.
Rail services are paralyzed from north to south of the country, with 80% of the rail services not running. The majority of the flight services are canceled, according to government sources. The joint strike is said to be the first in 22 years.
The unions are critical of the proposed budget cuts saying it is quite unfair that only the workers have to sacrifice. They say they oppose the fact that the government’s top-most priorities are only deficit, deficit and deficit.
BBC news quoted the unions as saying all of the country’s ports are closed; air traffic controllers and ground staff of airports are observing strike; bus and ferry links are disrupted; fewer than 10 percent of the workforce at Volkswagen’s Auto Europa plant have turned up for work.
Unfair Media Criticism
As usual, various media of the western countries from EU to the US have written negative analysis on the Portugal strikes. They continued to support austerity measures and to oppose workers’ anger towards austerity measures. They failed to acknowledge the hardships to which the workers across Europe and North America were subjected to, even though they are not part of the problem of debt crises and financial crises. Such an outlook can be attributed to the ownership of all media by a few multinational media companies.
These MNCs are beneficiaries of the austerity measures imposed by the EU countries in the name of maintaining fiscal discipline, as if the workers’ salaries and pensions are the main sources of fiscal indiscipline. These media companies never acknowledge the indiscipline of the governments and MNCs in observing their responsibilities towards their people and consumers. They never acknowledge indecent and greedy business practices of financial conglomerates. But, they will be ready to acknowledge the people’s opposition towards workers’ strikes.
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