About 300 municipal services workers of the Barcelona City Council demonstrated this Monday between Universitat square and Sant Jaume square to reject the new labor agreement approved on January 30 by the government of Jaume Collboni with the support of CCOO, UGT and CSIF.
In the protest have participated social services collectives, the area of feminisms, the Citizen Attention Offices, the nursery schools and the municipal libraries. The mobilization has ended in front of the City Council, where the attendees have demanded changes in the application of the labor agreement.
Rejection to the new agreement
The protesters denounce an unequal application of the 35-hour workday, as well as the elimination of rights linked to work-life balance and flexibility. They also maintain that the text consolidates precariousness in feminized and direct care services.
The main demand of the workers is to open a specific negotiation table for direct care services. Along with this, they demand that the 35-hour workday be applied equally among the different affected municipal groups.
No response to the request for dialogue
Union sources assure that the City Council did not respond to the request to constitute a negotiation table between the affected groups and the local executive. That silence has been one of the elements that has pushed the call for the march to the center of Barcelona.
During the day, the spokespersons for those affected have met with representatives of Junts, ERC and Comuns. The protest has united workers from various municipal areas who share the rejection of the conditions agreed upon in the agreement and who are asking for a review of the points that they consider harmful to their labor organization and their conciliation rights.
The mobilization has made visible the discomfort of these services in the institutional heart of the city, with the demand that the municipal government open a specific negotiation and address the demands of some groups that sustain a good part of the daily attention to the citizenry.