The decision by the Spanish government to use the army to seize airport control towers so as to defeat a wildcat strike by air traffic controllers is a warning to the entire working class.
The government of Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) has handed broad powers to the military by imposing a “state of alert,” nullifying basic democratic rights. The action exposes the thoroughly rightwing character of this “socialist” government. In its determination to impose the will of the financial aristocracy, it is taking measures that have not been seen since the end of the fascist regime of General Franco in 1975.
The stench of a police state once again hangs over Spain. The 2,200 air traffic controllers were forced back to work Friday and Saturday at gunpoint. Armed soldiers now stand guard in the airport towers as the workers direct air traffic under the threat of immediate arrest should they stop work.
In an attempt to justify these actions, Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said the workers were “holding the country to ransom” by defending their “unacceptable privileges.” He added, “The immediate effect is that the controllers are now under orders to go back to work and can be charged with a crime under the military penal code if they refuse. The state of alert will initially last for 15 days.”
Rubalcaba’s comments stand reality on its head. It is not the air traffic controllers who are holding the country ransom to defend privileges, but the ruling class for whom Rubalcaba speaks. The same methods used against the controllers will be employed against any section of the working class that opposes wage cutting and austerity. On Wednesday, only a few days before the state of alert was imposed, Spain passed a new round of social cuts.
For the duration of the state of alert, the controllers are categorised as military personnel. Under the orders given them, if they do not go to work they will be guilty of the crime of disobedience as laid down in Article 102 of the Military Penal Code, punishable by up to two years in prison.
The PSOE government ordered the state of alert at an emergency session following a mass sickout by the controllers that began Friday. The workers’ action, which immediately led to a massive disruption of air traffic throughout Europe, was provoked by a decree passed by the Council of Ministers earlier Friday. The decree drastically worsened the controllers’ labour conditions, significantly expanding their hours of work.
The same day the government approved plans to begin the privatisation of AENA, the state-controlled firm that runs the airports...The air traffic controller, based at Madrid’s Barajas Airport, said, “I cannot talk to you properly now. There are civil guards here, with pistols. If we don’t start work now, we will be arrested.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/pers-d06.shtmlSpanish air controllers start returning to work
MADRID (AP) — Spain's civil aviation agency says all airports are functioning normally after a wildcat strike by air traffic controllers that the government quashed by using unprecedented emergency measures.
On Saturday, the government implemented a "state of alarm," normally reserved for catastrophes such as earthquakes or floods, to get planes back in the skies and clear chaotic airports clogged with irate travelers who had seen their holiday hopes dashed by the unannounced strike.
Aena says 4,052 flights have been scheduled Sunday and that of 296 controllers down to work, 286 are at their posts, enabling airports to "operate fully."
By Saturday evening the decree, which had never been used before, prompted 283 of the 295 controllers scheduled to report for duty to do so, Spain's civil aviation agency AENA said, and flights were resuming at an increasing pace at airports packed with bewildered travelers.
http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/2010-12-03-spain-airport-closures_N.htm
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