It was hardly the kind of New Year's celebration that Spain's King Juan Carlos had in mind. Early last week 3,800 workers in Madrid's rapid-transit system called an illegal strike, leaving the capital without subway service and causing giant traffic jams. The strikers demanded half of a recent fare increase as a $600-per-person wage raise. Thousands of workers in other industries staged sympathy demonstrations that police broke up with tear gas.
Army railroad engineers were called in to operate some of the idled trains. The fledgling Cabinet of Premier Carlos Arias Navarro threatened to draft the strikers into the armed...