This editorial was published by the newspaper El Adelantado of Segovia, Spain and reproduced by Diario Las Américas
The call for a general strike on the 11th is legal, but it is not legitimate. Article 11 of Royal Decree Law 17/1977 states that a strike is illegal “when it is initiated or sustained for political reasons or for any other purpose unrelated to the professional interest of the affected workers.” It is true that the Constitutional Court, a posteriori, has recognized a broad conception of workers’ rights and, consequently, The call made by UGT and CCOO is within the legal framework, but it cannot be considered a general strike but rather a political act intended to influence the general elections on the 29th, whose campaign begins twenty-four hours after the call to strike.
The last general strike called in Spain was in 2012, with Mariano Rajoy in the Government. Since then, despite the fact that, throughout the eight years of Pedro Sánchez’s Government, housing has become more expensive by 90%, inflation has accumulated an increase of 25% and the risk of poverty or social exclusion is, according to the INE, 25%, the unions have not considered that there were reasons to call any protest against the Government. Now, faced with the risk that the left will be evicted from power, the unions are mobilizing not in defense of the interests of the workers, but in favor of those who have showered them throughout these years with nearly 600 million in subsidies and aid.
The former vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero, stated that: “Usually, so that citizens know, general strikes are called against the Governments. In this case, the general strike is called against the opposition.” The Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, by saying “I make Mrs. Montero’s words my own,” confirmed with his words that the strike next Wednesday aims to make political alternation difficult in Spain.
The Government instrumentalizes the unions and they, unfortunately, allow themselves to be manipulated. A strike to favor the Government, in addition to being unprecedented, turns the unions into tools at the service of the political parties in power and strips them of all credibility to represent the workers.
At this point, we can only hope that the Government that comes out of the polls on the 29th will put CCOO and UGT in their place, eliminating all the superfluous subsidies and aid that they are receiving from the pockets of all Spaniards.
We must not forget that these unions have fractured the so-called social dialoguewhich was in force in Spain since the Democratic Transition.
Without the slightest modesty or dignity, they have agreed with the Government of Pedro Sánchez, through, among others, his Vice President of Employment, Yolanda Díaz, linked to the radical left, a countless number of regulations aimed at limiting the freedom of enterprise, labor costs and absurd regulations for all types of economic activity, especially for SMEs.
All of this has been done without the presence of business organizations, which are the ones who pay for the party. Measures have been approved unilaterally between the Government and related unions, which are then translated into mandatory Royal Decrees, without the slightest possibility of being negotiated or discussed, based on electoral purposes and without taking into account the real problems of Spanish companies, among them, the alarming and continuous drop in productivity, which places us at the bottom of Europe, according to data recently published by Eurostat.
Spanish workers pay more taxes than ever and receive deplorable public services, but UGT and CCOO, far from representing the working class, betray said workers, acting servile in the face of power. On Wednesday, it is to be hoped that the Law will be respected, that the minimum services will be met and the pickets will not coerce a large majority, who will want to go to their workplace.
