The 2012 Asturian miners' strike was an industrial dispute involving more than 8,000 coal miners in the Spanish autonomous community of Asturias. The geographer David Featherstone has described the strike as "one of the most dramatic forms of anti-austerity protest to emerge in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–08."
Background
The coal mining industry has played a part in the local economy of the provinces of Asturias and León since the Roman era. The region also has a history of militancy: an uprising in 1934 led by miners took place but was crushed by General Franco; and a miners' strike which began in Asturias in 1962 involved nearly 500,000 workers and was the first time under Franco that a workers' movement had won significant concessions from the state. Miners also engaged in protests against privatization and industrial restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2010 the miners were successful in another dispute, which resulted in legislation supporting the coal industry. The Spanish coal industry had been in decline since the 1990s as subsidies were phased out, however, resulting in a...
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