Spain's new government faces first strike Spain's conservative government will face its first national general strike at the end of this month after trade unions voted for industrial action against labour market reforms. Spain's two largest unions, Comisiones Obreras and UGT, voted on Friday to call for a general strike on March 29 against reforms they called "the most regressive in the history of Spanish democracy." The labour reforms of Mariano Rajoy's government grant employers greater flexibility to pay lower compensation when they fire workers, a change Mr Rajoy argues is crucial to increase Spain's economic competitiveness, but one that has enraged the country's unions. Spain is struggling with more than 5m people, a fifth of its workforce, unemployed. The government argues that strong support from employers for the labour reforms demonstrate that it is taking the right steps to tackle joblessness. The country's borrowing costs have risen above Italy's in recent weeks after Mr Rajoy announced that Spain would miss this year's deficit reduction targets, which had been agreed with Brussels. Spain's unions are estimated to represent about a fifth of Spain's total workforce. The previous general strike in Spain, called in September 2010 against the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for raising the national retirement age, saw 7.5 per cent of all state workers walk out, according to the then government. The unions argue that they had petitioned the government on numerous occasions to enter into negotiations over the labour reforms, and that they had been left with no choice but to strike. "There is no precedent for a decision this brutal, that puts us on an unknown road without considering the consequences," said Cándido Méndez, head of the UGT union. It is a general strike both just and necessary. The Spanish government had said it was open to dialogue with the unions, but that it was not concerned about the consequences of a general strike. Mr Rajoy was overheard telling his Dutch and Finnish counterparts at an EU summit in January that the labour reforms would cost his government a general strike. The date of the general strike will coincide with planned action by regional unions in the Basque Country and Navarra.