Reuters:
Portugal's two biggest unions hold their first joint general strike since 1988 on Wednesday, hoping to weaken the Socialist government's resolve on implementing austerity measures meant to tackle a debt crisis.
Unions plan to stop trains and buses, ground planes and halt services from healthcare to banking in protest against wage cuts and rising unemployment in western Europe's poorest country.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose government is struggling to quash speculation that Portugal will be the next in Europe to need a bailout after Ireland and Greece, has pledged to stay the course on wage cuts and tax hikes to cut the budget deficit.
"Maybe the strike will not provoke radical changes in the austerity course the government has chosen, but it does represent an addditional element of uncertainty in the already unstable setting in the country," said Elisio Estanque, a sociology researcher at the University of Coimbra.
The unions hope to tap into the growing disatisfaction with the minority Socialist government's austerity measures, which also include across the board spending cuts in public services.
Greece did the same thing - it didn't work there, but Portugal seems unwilling to recognize the issues and challenges they face. The Eurozone is still scary (yeah, worry far more about this than North Korea - boots on the ground in South Korea are not overly worried) and I would not yet be a player in Portugal (fewer corporate names anyway). Portugal will be the focus of specs even sooner than I thought.
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