MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile rocked by labour protests demanding job protection

Chilean police used tear gas and water cannons to break up a labor demonstration in downtown Santiago, part of a nationwide strike of workers demanding job protection amid a wave of layoffs as the global crisis reaches the country.

The Thursday protest closed some schools and cut some hospitals to handling only emergency cases while scattered clashes broke out in downtown Santiago when demonstrators tried to break police lines. Organizers said the march drew 12.000 people, though police did not provide estimates.

Protestors marched carrying banners saying “Workers will not pay the price for the crisis” and “Worker dignity”. Small groups of masked protesters threw rocks and bottles at police and destroyed traffic signs. An estimated twenty demonstrators were arrested.

The strike was called by the Central Workers Federation, CUT Chile's largest labor organization and included a wide spectrum of marchers from civil servants to workers from the private sector.

“Big businesses are firing workers” CUT President Arturo Martinez told marchers in downtown Santiago. “Protests will go on and on until the abuse stops”. CUT led a four-day strike in November that hundreds of thousands of Chilean public sector workers took part in to demand a pay increase, forcing President Michelle Bachelet's government to improve its pay raise offer.

Marchers are now pressing the ruling coalition as presidential and congressional elections are scheduled for next November.

The Chilean economy contracted 3.9% in February, the biggest since May 1999 and the fourth consecutive monthly drop. Analysts forecast the economy will shrink 0.5% in 2009, quite distant from the 2% to 3% growth estimated by the government.

In related news confirming the Chilean economy slowdown new automobile sales fell 47.6% in March from a year earlier, totalling 11.364 according to Chile's auto association, ANAC.

The organization is expecting sales to tumble 46% in 2009 to 130.000 units from a record 239.835 units in 2008 because of the global slowdown.

However ANAC said March sales “were in line” with its forecasts, and “showed a little more activity” than in January and February because of the strengthening of the country's currency and a drop in interest rates.