BOLIVIAN police used tear gas and rubber bullets to keep striking workers away from the Congress building on Tuesday during an eighth day of anti-austerity demonstrations.

Miners launched fireworks at police and let off of sticks of dynamite during the battle against the elimination of decades-old fuel subsidies and other neoliberal measures by new President Rodrigo Paz.

Petrol prices have risen by 86 per cent and diesel is up by 162 per cent, following the scrapping of the subsidies under Decree 5503.

The Bolivian Workers Centre (COB) union bloc is planning to intensify protests in the coming week, following a unity agreement between miners, peasants, factory workers and teachers that was signed on Sunday.

Coalfield women’s group Conacmin has also vowed to join the strike.

Workers’ ire rose after the Paz government insisted that it would not modify “a single article” of 5503.

The decree also gives the central bank the green light to borrow money without the approval of Bolivia’s legislature.

COB second secretary Jose Choque said at least 101 of the 121 articles in the decree were unconstitutional.

He said workers would begin setting up hunger strike pickets across the country, while a strike committee and mobilisation committee would being work in the new year.

Paz, who campaigned on a programme of “capitalism for all” and closer ties to the US, took office in November after two decades of Movement for Socialism government.