MADRID (AFP) - Spanish shipyard workers blockaded traffic in the northwestern port of Ferrol as thousands rallied to protest plans to part-privatise shipyards threatened by bankruptcy.

Police said they had set up diversions after some four thousand workers brought traffic to a halt for around 20 minutes, some setting fire to barricades.

The strike followed another work stoppage on Tuesday, when union sources said almost the whole workforce of about 10,700 had answered the call to down tools.

That stoppage came two days after thousands of workers with state shipbuilder Izar joined a demonstration outside the Ferrol yard in the northwestern region of Galicia.

The future of 10 Izar yards owned by government industrial holding company SEPI hangs in the balance amid the looming threat of bankruptcy amid European Union (news - web sites) demands that Izar repay 300 million euros (372.8 million dollars) in aid which Brussels says breached EU competition rules.

The sector is also struggling in the face of fierce competition from Asia.

Thursday's protest at Ferrol saw emotions run all the higher after workers discovered that a yard in the southern region of Andalucia had won a major contract which they themselves had hoped to land.

Local union representatives cried foul given that the Socialists control the Andalusian regional government whereas the conservative Popular Party runs Galicia.

"It's an exclusively political decision," said Manel Grandal, spokesman for the Galician union confederation.

In the northern city of Gijon in Asturias, there were further protests which some 200 students joined 410 workers in a march on the city centre, according to local media.

The shipyards conflict is the first major test of industrial relations for Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, elected in March and who has promised to save the yards.

But the workers are pessimistic the promise can be fulfilled in a sector which has already shed 30,000 jobs in three previous restructuring plans effected in the 1980s.

The current plan involves separating naval dockyard activities, the most profitable, from civil shipyards which are due to be partly privatised.

also check out the news from past days
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/46718
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/46485
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/46423
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/46351

also check out two anarcho-syndicalist unions
www.cgt.es
www.cnt.es/home.php