Hundreds march in Madrid against the social and economic policy of the government – The Universe

Hundreds of people convened on a platform of left-wing marched this Saturday through the centre of Madrid, against the social and economic policy of the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy, who did not want to give “even a day of truce,” said the AFP.

With slogans like “the struggle is the only way” or “bread, work, shelter, and freedom”, the march started from the plaza of Spain, crossed the Gran Vía and concluded without incident to 21H30 (20H30 GMT) in the plaza de Neptuno, near the Spanish Congress of Deputies, protected by a police cordon.

A source of the collective “Marches of Dignity”, which called the demonstration, estimated participation at about 2,000 people, who were in the few hundreds to get to their term.

“We are choking with the cuts; the pensioners are suffering, and the work is precarious,” he told the AFP Pilar Magaña, who sported a little flag with the motto “Cut the bankers and the clergy”.

“we can Not more and we are very tired”, he added, this used a ‘call center’ that describes the sector of telemarketing as “a horror” by the precarious employment situation and the low salaries.

“This government said that he would not raise taxes and was elected with that program. But just done a climb quite important, which will affect the working class”, he added José Manuel, a worker at the plant of Coca-Cola in Fuenlabrada, near Madrid, which prefers not to say his last name.

José Manuel criticized on Friday the government announced a raise of the contributions to the pension system, as part of efforts to raise more and to comply with the deficit reduction goals promised to Brussels.

According to him, such a provision “hidden” in the midst of other tax hikes on tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks, in addition to an increase in the minimum wage from 8 per cent in 2017.

In the manifesto read at the close of the march in madrid there was no lack of criticism of the socialists. The Popular Party (PP) of Rajoy, the minority in Parliament, trust in them to take forward the budget for 2017 in exchange for concessions such as the minimum wage.

“The PSOE is increasingly less bellows to continue representing the farce of dressing up with a language that is leftist, then always carry out the social policies more harsh,” said the text that was read to the protesters.

similar Marches took place Saturday in other Spanish cities such as Zaragoza and Salamanca.

The 15 and 18 December, the two main unions, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and UGT, have called demonstrations across Spain to press the government of Rajoy.