MADRID METRO HALTED AS SPANISH STRIKES SPREAD An estimated 1.2 mln metro users in Madrid were stranded today as striking railway workers halted the underground transport system, industry sources said. The strikers joined coal miners, steel and oil refinery workers in Spain's latest wave of stoppages over wage demands. Some 10,000 pitmen in the northern province of Leon entered the second day of an indefinite stoppage to demand wage rises and a five-day working week, the sources said. Oil refinery workers picketed the state-owned Empresa Nacional de Petroleo SA (EMP) to prevent fuel lorries leaving the company's largest plant in Puertollano, central Spain. Paramilitary police were guarding steel mills at Reinosa, in northern Spain, from the daily protests against planned job cuts. A local government official said the police force would remain in place until tempers had cooled down. More than 60 people were injured in pitched battles between police and steel foundry workers in Reinosa last month.