mercadona union and union leaders, the strike continues !!!!!! ! now given an interview to an employee of the supermarket mercadona Sant Sadurni d'Anoia (Spain). The struggle for the preservation and improvement of working conditions in this chain of supermarkets in Spain has been really hard and lasted a couple of years (2006 and 2007) but has given fruitful results for male and female workers who have achieved.
I found this interview interesting for several key reasons:
-1: mobilization within the area of \u200b\u200btrade , a category usually considered as less combative. The strikes in Spain and the fight mercadona dell'ortomercato of Milan in Italy show that the action of self-managed workers to improve their conditions is possible and, if carried out with determination and consciousness of the workers involved, it gives great results.
-2 : mercadona is a chain of supermarkets widespread and well seen, which bases its advertising image on the model of "total quality" to the product, customer, employee and environment.
Setting the advertising campaign is similar to using the retail chain IKEA.
-3: the precarious standard in ikea, the use of free labor, as interns, outsourcing is increasingly perceived as a strong widespread unease. no problem is insurmountable when there is a will to react to the insecurity that makes us suffer. This is just to find intervention strategies that are able to aggregate people in a company like ours, characterized by a strong turn-over of staff.
-4: mobilization and the struggle began in one place by a small group of workers.
This is a lesson to learn against those who made the resignation of its flag and against whom great that, without unions, without solid and combative, without endless masses of people, no fighting is possible. Mercadona el'ortomercato show us exactly the opposite. do not have to be stewards of the profession or trade union to call a strike!
The only struggle you lose is what you do not want to do, and no one will protect our interests but ourselves, no Forget it ever !!!!!!
mercadona What?
Mercadona here in spain is a chain of supermarkets widespread and well seen in the hands of Joan Roig, one of the richest men in the country.
This chain of supermarkets based its advertising image on the model of "total quality" model whereby the company the most important thing is the customer, followed by employees, suppliers, and finally by the company by capital, marketing strategy resulting from a chain of Irish supermarket.
understand how all this is not true, because our workers are exploited and, like all companies, what matters is profit. One of the characteristics of
mercadona is not advertising in newspapers and on television because he created an image of company attentive to the customer and the employee and the customer uses the word of mouth as advertising.
The company as a whole has 56 000 permanent workers throughout Spain, of whom, however, every day, 5 / 6 they leave due to injuries or health problems resulting from the very hard work and general conditions of work (lack of hygiene, non-compliance safety standards, ill-treatment.)
How are the working conditions within mercadona?
The sector that suffers most of the bad working conditions and hygiene is the field of logistics, warehouses like ours Sant Sadurni On Anon.
In our case, working hours are seven and a half a day, six days are 45 hours per week, with night shifts, we ask is that we be considered as working time of the half-hour meal because we steal 12 hours per month . free day for those who work nights, and holidays are decided by the company based on production.
Mercadona demands that we move at least 18 tonnes per week and promising productivity bonuses for those who exceed this amount.
To increase the competitiveness among the workers hang listings weekly with the amount of cargo moved by each of us, and are thus able to create a monitoring system among the workers themselves.
also occupational physicians do not recognize the illness caused by too much work and workers are forced to improvise with their colds and compaction are general practitioners, for a few days of illness.
In-stock where the strike began, 700 people work for the vast majority of which are South American immigrants.
is a chance the strong presence of South American immigrants?
Of course not. You know that going to take people directly in South America? On the basis of government contracts between Spain and Ecuador / rep.domenicana, mercadona (as well as El Corte Ingles and McDonald's Spain) was facilitated to import labor from these countries in spain, promising him a permanent job. Convince us to permanent contract from day one, with the 860 euro per month, which can increase ... (ecuador when an average salary is around $ 160), but once you get here make us sign another contract in which there are 6-month trial (when in Spain should be 15 days) and if we do not reach the minimum production receive no increase. Then we have to pay for the trip, find accommodation in Barcelona-the most expensive city-cake, arriving in a country where the workplace does not even speak to us in English because we speak Catalan, and are also considered "different" for this .
Upon arriving we were lent € 800 for initial expenses, which we later had to return with the first payroll. Group 30 lots of people from Ecuador, of which I was part, only 6 are still at the core logistics mercadona, others have sought other work.
Think mercadona alone imported, directly, 2,000 people from South America, why do it when in Spain there are 1 million immigrants irregololari?
How did the section of the CNT-and mercadona?
Because of the terrible working conditions in seven, all of South America we have addressed a majority of unions, Comisión Obrera, who told us to wait for the upcoming union elections. Imagine, if we had to wait a year and a half we would not back or we would leave earlier.
We turned to the CNT-and because we knew that a year before he had a conflict with mercadona in Huelva (Andalusia).
On the advice of the Advocate-cnt, and the first 15 days no notice of the training within the company to have time to organize and so joined the rest of us and we are now 25 employees.
and relations with other unions?
majority unions participating in union elections within of mercadona and more generally in Spain, are part of the leadership of the company, receive money for union activity and not by the workers. In our case, the stewards of the UGT, the socialist trade union, are the same leaders who sign our license.
do not know if you know it, but in spain it is normal for directors and managers are stewards of the company / sector.
are so useless that our colleagues did not even know the existence of a national contract, let alone the new contract signed dall'ugt in 2006, worse than the first.
At the end you decided to strike when and how you made the decision?
As we have said on March 3 the company announced the creation of the CNT trade union branch and the reaction was exaggerated, my boss asked me if I was crazy to bring cnt holding because the trucks were burned and shops.
But the worst came after me while I was suspended seven days and fired home two of the most active partners and we have launched a first strike for 10 days.
On 22 March we had a meeting with the company that broke off at 4 at night (from 10pm) to company's refusal to readmit licenziati.noi had already decided before going that one of the milestones was the release of comrades fired. One thing to be told that evening is that when we arrived in the hotel where they held the meeting we found a table with food and alcoholic beverages, believed that we would have seen that we are drunk-South America-and so the match would go to their please, but we decided, immediately, to seek only water and not to eat anything.
The next morning began the strike with a vengeance, it was March 23. The first day of the strike there were more than 50 workers in our warehouse for a few days and we did some picketing to the place of saint Sadurni of anonymity. from March to now we have done over 70 events between Barcelona and the countries around.
How did you physically organized to deal with the strike?
We have set up a solidarity fund which was attended by workers throughout Spain, andnot only.
The case of solidarity, however, did not meet the need for all, because 20 strikers mean 20 families to support. Each of us took the minimum necessary to live according to their needs, but often some comrades did not take anything, and it happened to many of us do not pay the rent or mortgage, etc. ..
Mercadona also gave us the money because the strike fine and we left the farm: € 300 000 because the strike ended immediately (about € 17,000 each).
With this money many of us could go back to their countries and live better than we live here, but this strike we are not doing it for money, but to ensure better working conditions and to demand basic rights.
During the strike, have also taken action?
Of actions we have made over 70 only in the province of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bthe most important, the consequences have been for at least three.
The first had as its goal the Labour Inspectorate. Since they were not doing an inspection, we decided to tie the gates of their home and were shackled for 30 hours, but eventually we got an inspection the next morning. We
we were not entirely satisfied because, of course, the inspectors did not want to see a lot of things, on the other hand, the company has taken a fine because it violated certain safety rules, and within a few months to come into compliance.
The striking action, which gave us more visibility in the media, we made it in early August. There are crucifixes in front of a supermarket mercadona and we were all day in the yard of the shop talking to the people who went to the grocery store and explaining our reasons and the struggle we are carrying out.
This action has given a lot of vitality in the strike because the companies have worked days to build the crosses and prepare the material and in the morning when the store called the national secretary of the CNT, we said that we would be there all day.
Another high-impact action was when we built a prison board and we went in front of another supermarket mercadona mercadona launching the message that is equal to Guantanamo. When we do these actions, the party attracts people play, and then we go to explain and talk about our struggle. For a company like
mercadona these actions are more harmful than the strike itself, because they go to undermine the dear buena company with their customers.
AND THINK OF WHAT TO DO AFTER 6 MONTHS TO STRIKE indefinitely?
all-out strike was becoming difficult to sustain. Many of us did not do more to keep going and the work we said we had been fired, so in mid-September, we went back to work and we decided to hold a partial strike by 22 every Thursday at 22 of the Friday, because Friday is the day when people go to do the weekly shop and the shops are selling more.
This strategy was successful because many workers who could not afford a strike with a vengeance, we are unable to join.
In the first week of work, after more than 6 months of strike, nothing happened, it seemed that everything was normal, and even heads were kind to us, but already the second week the weather is always returned to they fired me with very serious allegations of intimidation of a coordinator of a supermarket, for which I will shortly have a job.
Now, the 22 strikers, we are 6 to be fired.
Mercadona does not want union workers because of the logistics industry in the coming years will be mechanized with a cut staff by 50%, as is already happening in the seat that is laying off 600 workers.
