200 miners were protesting austerity cuts yesterday in the northern Spanish village of Ciñera near León. Police used rubber bullets, protesters retaliated with their own home-made weapons.
There have been ongoing protests in several mining towns and villages in Spain, over the Spanish Government's plans to slash subsidies to the coal sector by over 60%. This would reduce subsidies from 301 million euro last year, to only 111 million this year.
According to union officials, these austerity measures could jeopardize the jobs of about 8,000 coal miners and up to 30,000 other people indirectly employed in the mining sector... read more.
