Word: unionizes
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Until recently, Spain was one of the European Union's great success stories. In 1992, Spain's per capita GDP was 70% of the E.U. average; by 2006 it was 90% of that of the 15 pre-2004 members. Growth helped cut unemployment, which had hovered near 20% for decades, to 8.3% in 2007, and drew hundreds of thousands of immigrants to a country that had, in the '50s and '60s, sent its own desperate citizens abroad. (Read: "Bitter Harvest in Spain's Olive Country...
...generations born under democracy embraced rising expectations, both material (by 2007, 81% of families owned their own home and 21% had a second one) and professional. "That was the major social change of the transition," says Cristina Bermejo, director of youth issues for the Workers' Commission, Spain's largest union. "Illiteracy had been a big problem in Spain since the civil war. But in the '70s and '80s, there was a reaction against it. Suddenly everyone, even factory workers, expected their kids to go to university and do better than they...
...only problem. One of the dirty little secrets of Spain's boom years was the number of people Spanish firms employed on casual contracts. In an effort to make its labor market more flexible, the country has the highest rate of temporary jobs in the European Union: one in three. The great majority of those "trash contracts," as they're called by locals, go to the young, making them the easiest (read: least expensive) workers to fire. None of this is new. Young people have complained of being mileuristas since Europe adopted the common currency and the general precariousness...
...their own homes. "There is a lack of ethics in all this," he said. "The Christmas trees don't project the image of a humble party of the poor." The continual Christmas celebration is also symptomatic of a country "full of poets and surrealism," Carrion says. Sandinista lawmaker and union boss Gustavo Porras has no patience for such naysayers. "We are in the second phase of the revolution," he says, "and we are fighting the same enemies as always - the oligarchy and the gringos." Porras, an Ortega loyalist, is a main architect in the government's constant mobilization and celebration...
...once a national pastime, compliance with the ban is high: 97% in New York City, 98.5% in Italy and 94% in Ireland, according to the U.S-based Global Smokefree Partnership. "There will be a transition period, which lasts several months, while people realize the cultural norm has shifted," says The Union's Ratte. "But we have the example of France to go by. Nobody thought it was possible, but after the cut-off date, the norm changed overnight." (See a video on the end of the French custom of smoking in bars and restaurants...