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In Britain yesterday an estimated 750,000 public sector workers staged a 24-hour strike to protest proposed cuts to pension benefits, and other austerity measures. Teachers, police, and civil servants walked off the job with about 20,000 marching in the streets, the first such action in three decades. Unions say this is only the first of a series of actions planned through the Summer and into the Fall. The LA Times reports that at the close of Thursday participants were calling the day a success. On Wednesday labor leaders worried that closing schools and bringing business-as-usual to a grinding halt would turn public sentiment against unions. The AP on Wednesday reported that the British government was betting on a backlash, hoping to bolster arguments that proposed cuts are fair and necessary. The ruling coalition plans to cut a tremendous $130 billion from the budget over 4 years. Meanwhile yesterday Reuters reported that world stocks rose to their highest point in a month, and the Euro got a boost, after the Greek parliament approved further austerity measures on Wednesday. The approval, by a vote of 155 to 138, paved the way for IMF loan payments to Greece, a nation apparently on the brink of bankruptcy. Along with spending cuts on health, school closures, and tax hikes on the self-employed, $50 billion dollars worth of state-owned assets are up for sale. Weeks of on-and off protests in Greece against a tighter squeeze on domestic spending culminated in a call for a 48-hour general strike before the vote. Masses of people turned out to battle aggressive Greek security forces armed with tear gas. The Greek government is continuing to work with the European Union on a more comprehensive $157 billion dollar bailout package. And finally in Spain, weeks long protests by thousands of largely college-educated, unemployed youth, dubbed the “indignados,” or “indignants,” are quieter but not over. The tent-city in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol was cleared in early June. This week, protestors in Barcelona had agreed to leave their encampment at Plaza de Catalunya in exchange for an information booth to disseminate information to the public. However disagreements about the plan caused some protestors to resume their occupation on Wednesday.

GUEST: Steven Hill, a political writer and author whose latest book is “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.” He has just returned from a fact-finding trip to Spain where he interviewed participants in the Plaza del Sol protest encampment as well as think tank researchers, and last October he was in Greece where he interviewed Greek Prime Minister Papandreou and other government ministers.

Find out more at www.EuropesPromise.org