SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – Thousands of workers marched  in the Chilean capital yesterday to demand job security and  more state protection amid a rash of layoffs linked to the  global economic crisis, with a small core of protesters  clashing with police.

Police cordoned off the presidential palace downtown and  stopped traffic along Santiago’s main thoroughfare as  protesters marched with banners reading: “The workers will not  pay the price for the crisis” and “Worker dignity.”

The march was organized by Chile’s largest labor union  umbrella group, known by its Spanish initials CUT, and the  protesters included a broad spectrum of workers from teachers  to supermarket staff.

Some protesters pulled down metal barricades and lobbed  them at police, who responded with water cannons and teargas,  during a short-lived clash in central Santiago, but Reuters  witnesses said marches in the capital were otherwise peaceful.

The government said police arrested 148 people mostly in  Santiago, 53 of them minors. Local media put the turnout in  Santiago at 12,000 people.

Like many of its emerging market peers, Chile’s economy,  long regarded as one of the most stable in Latin America, is  facing a sharp slowdown as the global crisis hammers demand for  its top export, copper, and depresses domestic consumer  buying.

“Big businesses are firing workers,” CUT President Arturo  Martinez told fellow marchers in downtown Santiago. “(Protests)  will go on and on until the abuse stops.”

Martinez also called for a state pension fund instead of  private pension funds, while protesters used the strike to  demand improvements to the country’s education system.

The marchers sought to pressure the center-left government  as it heads into a presidential election later this year that  opinion polls indicate a resurgent right will win.

“We think this has been a relatively orderly demonstration.  Workers have been able to voice their demands,” said Patricio  Rosende, undersecretary at Chile’s Interior Ministry.

“We’re sorry that as always there are isolated groups who  try to disrupt the legitimate right of workers to speak out,”  he added. Protest leaders condemned the violence.

CUT led a four-day strike in November in which hundreds of  thousands of Chilean public-sector workers participated to  demand a pay increase, forcing President Michelle Bachelet’s  government to improve its pay raise offer.