 On 25 June 2009, the CDTN trade union confederation led a 24-hour general strike across the nation to protest the President's referendum plans, after a previous strike had been indefinitely postponed on 18 June.All seven trade union confederations took part, in the first general strike since the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1999, and the first joint action by all seven major confederations.The organizers provided skeleton staffs of union workers for hospitals, water and electric utilities, and airports.