AFP reported that Spanish miners burned tyres and blocked roads on Monday during a mass strike to protest against subsidy cuts that they say threaten tens of thousands of jobs.

Masked miners put up fresh barricades across the road Monday near a mine in Mieres, Asturias. At the barricades near Mieres, police declined to intervene and protesters set fire to tyres and wooden barriers and let off firecrackers before dispersing.

Unions said 50,000 people joined the march that passed off peacefully late Monday afternoon in Langreo, a town dependent on coal. Several thousand also marched in Leon.

The strike was also called in some 50 other mining towns.

Protests in the northern coal mining regions over the past few weeks have turned radical, as striking miners armed with catapults have clashed daily with riot police armed with rubber bullets.

Spain's cash strapped central government has slashed subsidies to the coal sector this year to EUR 111 million from EUR 301 million last year, as a part of wide ranging cuts to lower its deficit.

Spain's coal mining industry has been contracting for decades, with its direct workforce shedding more than 40,000 people over the past 20 years. Spain has around 8,000 coal miners and the sector indirectly provides jobs for up to 30,000 other

Source – AFP

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