THOUSANDS of doctors, nurses and other medical staff, along with teachers, firefighters and students brought the Catalan capital to a halt on Thursday as four days of industrial action – largely over budget cuts and working conditions – escalated.
Police estimated that around 8000 people demonstrated in Barcelona, bringing the main route through the city to a standstill.
Public sector employees demanded Catalan President Quim Torra reverse budget cuts introduced during the financial crisis a decade ago.
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They also want improvements in working conditions to reflect the more recent economic upturn.
It was the fourth day of action this week, each of which has seen almost two thirds of Catalonia’s family doctors stop work in protest at the “precariousness” of their sector.
After their first day on strike, they were quickly joined by others from the public sector.
Doctors want to spend a guaranteed minimum of 12 minutes on each patient visit, with no more than 28 visits a day – demands that have been rejected by the Catalan Health Institute (ICS), which manages around 80% of primary healthcare services.
Teachers say their sector has not recovered from austerity measures introduced by former Catalan premier Artur Mas in 2011, and want a return to the previous school schedule and smaller class numbers.
University tuition fees rose by almost 70% during the financial crash and students want them cut by 30%.
The Catalan government still owes 160,000 civil servants and other public sector workers extra pay that was slashed as part of Mas’s austerity measures.
They will strike on December 12 if no agreement is reached.
The outspoken mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, backed the protests and called for government action, tweeting: “Public services in Catalonia are at bare minimum levels after years of cutbacks and an abrogation of responsibility by the government of the Generalitat, which has completely abandoned our local leaders… Catalonia needs a government that governs. Now, no more excuses.”
Although Torra has remained mostly silent during the action, he tweeted on Thursday that he was meeting with members of his cabinet to “continue working to reach the necessary agreements for the good of our citizens”.
However, his officials have been more vocal, with Health Secretary Laura Pelay announcing an investment of €100 million (£89m) in “the improvement of our public health system and, in particular, primary health care”.
She said: “We are on the path of dialogue while learning the limits of both parties and closer positions.
“We acted with empathy and with outstretched hand, committed to finding solutions to short, medium and long term.”
Education Secretary, Núria Cuenca, told journalists in Barcelona that of the more than 84,000 teachers called on to strike, only 11.7% actually stopped work.
However, Cuenca seemed to agree that they had a case: “It is certainly a group that has suffered cuts in recent years, although three years ago the government has reversed a good deal of these cuts.
“What we want is to make a more excellent system but more resources and more investment will be needed, especially in improving the attention to students that is the centre of the system and the department’s first objective.
“We agree with many of the proposals… of the unions but the concretion will be done within the framework of the 2019 budgets, from which we would like to improve the attention to the students and also the working conditions of the teaching staff.”
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