A DEMONSTRATION by Basque natonalisis which narco the curo pean indoor athletics championship in san sebasuan was onry we most spectacular point in a week of acton against Government repres sion.
Fifteen hundred demonstrators occupied the stadium and only agreed to leave when three leading athletics administrators, including the British president of the European Athletics Association, agreed to accompany them as a protection against the riot police.
The action was triggered off by the killing of two suspected ETA members by the Civil Guard on 8 March. strikes brougn large sec tors of industry in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa to a standstill.
VAGUE This was the week when the announced further amendments to Francoist Among these was a vague guarantee of amnesty for political prisoners. Martin Fernandes Palacios, a Basque Cortes deputy, SCHL LO 'take the pulse' of the Basque country by the Interior Minister, claims that all the political prisoners will be reicasea.
But nothing is that certain. One newspaper estimated that 80 of the 200 political prisoners will benefit automatCally. lawyers says that only 22 could be while a certain of release. Basque workers and nationalists have heard too of these promises to satisfied until all their comrades are free.
The Basque Nationalist Party thinks that this latest move represCHLO Government's promises'. a total fulfillment of the But the tens of thousands of strikers were less satisfied.
Ironically these strikes showed up the limitations of the other 'reform of the last week return of the right to strike. In is so hedged fact this around with conditions as to be almost useless. 'Political' strikes, for example, are forbidden, immediatelv ruling out the Basque strikes of last week.
RUSO forbidden alC against collective contracts which are still in force. This means that workers will be allowed a maximum of one strike a year less in many cases - provided that no political demands included in the collective contract claim. In the past, workers many companies have used these claims as an opportunity to take action around demanas for acmocratic freedoms.
This royal decree on labour relations has a real sting in the tail. Its real purpose has little to do with liberalisation. The decree restores employers freedom to sack workers. suspension of an Article of the Franco Labour Law last October was designed to achieve the same thing but working class resistance had made it impossible to impSpanish workers have been the most successful in resisting the austerity plans of the capitalists. maintained and even increased real wages and employment leveis nave been maintained.
parties have collaborated in the Government's "liberalisation' but of it now appears that the growing economic crisis and the refusal of workers to bear the cost present the greatest obstacle to the stabilbe isation of capitalist rule in Spain.
Far from being a liberalisation, these latest measures are a desperate attempt to stave off this crisis.
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