Protests bring Spanish coal mining to standstill

Madrid, Agency
Spain's leading coal mines were brought to a halt Wednesday by striking workers demanding continued government subsidies and the payment of back salaries.

Mining activity was shut down in Asturias, where 5,000 private-sector workers and employees of state-owned miner HUNOSA have been called to strike; unions in that region also have organized different marches by miners that will converge on Thursday in Asturias' capital, Oviedo.

The first day of a strike in the northwestern region of Leon on Wednesday drew some 4,000 miners, or 100 percent of those called to participate in the job action, while some 200 miners were in the second day of a march on foot to Leon city, the provincial capital.

The miners, who come from throughout northern Spain, plan to cover the 200 kilometers (120 miles) to Leon by Sept. 29.

If by then the EU has not approved Spanish legislation providing incentives to electric companies to buy domestic coal, the miners will continue on to Madrid, organizers say.

The EU's current regulations authorizing such incentives expire Dec. 31 and some inside the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-member bloc, have proposed mandating a definitive end to coal subsidies in 2014.

A call to strike was also fully heeded Wednesday in the northeastern region of Aragon, where more than 700 miners were participating, according to unions.

Elsewhere, mine workers in the southern region of Andalusia were on strike, while in the central region of Castile-La Mancha the 250 employees of the Encasur open pit mine also heeded a call to protest.

Miners have stepped up job actions in recent weeks to press demands for back pay and to call on the European Commission to allow the Spanish government to continue subsidizing the domestic coal industry.

In Ponferrada, Leon, four miners were continuing a hunger strike they began last week, while six union representatives holed up at the Industry Ministry headquarters in Madrid have joined the fast.

Underground sit-ins by workers at two northern mines and road-blocking protests also were continuing.

Two 48-hour protests in the mining sector were scheduled for this Wednesday and Thursday and for Sept. 29-30, the latter coinciding with a planned general strike against government austerity measures.