Spain faces another tourism related strike

SPAIN (Agencies/Image: RTVE.es) The Spanish tourism business is facing another strike by employees of AENA, the airports authority. The unions representing these employees have come together to announce a strike that totals 22 days, most of them coinciding with holidays of varying importance (See image of proposed dates, click to enlarge). The first strike protesting>
about the government's plans to privatise the country's airports, is scheduled for April 20 and 21, Easter week, for instance. While the government is trying to negotiate a settlement, the tourism business, Spain's largest, is fearing the worst. The Confederación Española de Hoteles y Alojamientos Turísticos (CEHAT) complains that the strike could cause 'irrepairable damage' to the industry at a time when there are indicators that it could be beginning to recover. Many of the federations and associations representing several sectors of the industry insist that the unions (UGT, USO and CC.OO.) are determined to undermine the country's recovery, and fear that tourists from the UK and Germany, which represent the vast majority of visitors, will opt for holidays elsewhere - just at the moment the situation in North Africa favours this country's tourism.