Workers and police clash at airport during Iberia strike

   
Striking union workers clashed with police at Madrid's Barajas airport on Monday on the first day of a week-long strike over more than 3,800 pending job cuts at Spain's flagship airline Iberia.    

Hundreds of workers demonstrated outside Barajas, Iberia's hub, and inside the airport's Terminal 4 where they carried out a sit-in and chanted and whistled.    

Outside the terminal, police beat some strikers with truncheons. At least two protesters were arrested.    

More than 80 Iberia flights were cancelled on Monday as workers at the carrier began the series of strikes that is expected to cost the airline and struggling national economy millions of euros in lost business.    

Staff, including baggage handlers and air stewards, are holding three five-day strikes in February and March to protest management plans to axe jobs and cut salaries at the loss-making airline. Some 10 percent of long-haul flights and half of domestic flights will be grounded this week.    

The labour unions kicked off the demonstrations in the morning with an 8 km-march (5 miles) around Barajas, telling reporters the airline was under threat, as was the future of the airport.        

Although skeleton staff were on duty and the airline had rescheduled most passengers or returned them their money, some people were left stranded.       

Queues formed as some staff abandoned check-in desks while unionists shouted in the airport.     The Feb. 18-22 strike coincides with school holidays in Britain, Spain's biggest source of tourists.  


REUTERS