Portugal's two biggest unions held their first joint general strike since 1988 on Wednesday, hoping to weaken the Socialist government's resolve on implementing austerity measures meant to tackle a debt crisis. Unions stopped trains and buses, grounded planes and halted services from healthcare to banking in protest against wage cuts and rising unemployment. Protest action in Western Europe's poorest country has been tame during the economic crisis that began in 2008. But Portuguese were angered by the government's 2011 budget plan to cut wages for civil servants by five per cent and freeze pensions.