Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2010, as an opinion piece written on 30 September 2010, the day after the general strike called against the labour reform of the then Socialist government. “Yesterday,” “this morning,” the government and the opposition all refer to that moment.
Reading the local and national papers on the general strike of 29 September 2010, I was struck that they’re calling it a resounding success, because I get the feeling I’ve missed something, or that they’re talking about a different strike. Still, it’s true that we’ve managed to catch the attention of other countries in a tremendous exercise of “shooting ourselves in the foot”.
The curious thing is that some Spaniards didn’t even notice there was a general strike yesterday. Though that shouldn’t worry us too much.
I’m not in favour of the labour reform that has been passed, and in fact I don’t understand how a left-wing government chose to approve it in a country where working people already have it pretty tough. But I’m aware that Spain’s recovery, like that of the European Union, depends on the confidence that foreign investors place in us.
And believe me, right now that confidence is anything but good. While most Spaniards didn’t see much of the strike, the images shown abroad were the most controversial ones: police cars on fire, scuffles with pickets, clashes with the police, and blood. Those isolated scenes are the most eye-catching, and from outside they make it look as if Spain is going the way of Greece. What the world saw yesterday will cause us problems down the line.
The rest of the world knows about the measures the Spanish government has adopted: job insecurity, tax rises, pension cuts, wage freezes, banks choking off credit to entrepreneurs, and so on.
You don’t need to be some Harvard-educated genius to know that no country that has adopted these measures has got back on its feet; quite the opposite, they have bred distrust worldwide, because it’s been proven that they are not the right measures to get out of the crisis.
I’ll leave you with a comment an American investor made to me this very morning: “If a left-wing government did that, God knows what the right would have done in your country.”
Some time ago I wrote a post about how the United States liked Spain. Today I have to say that the United States has no confidence in Spain’s recovery, whatever the papers try to sell you.
Our government takes ill-judged measures, and our opposition sells Spain’s chaos to win votes and admiration abroad. So why are we surprised? Spain needs a good image abroad, and right now we’re not giving it one.
And finally, let’s call things by their name. Saying this strike was a success is a big lie: there was little “strike” about it, and even less that was “general”.
Featured image: Fabrício de Paula, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
