Strikes and demonstrations in Spains

Our drama, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis, is not only about the effects of the economic crisis but it also includes some footage of two demonstrations in Spain...in Jerez de la Frontera, to be more specific  This makes me think of strikes and demonstrations in Spain, and how they differ from their counterparts in the United States.

Some of the strikes and demonstrations in Spain are linked to the Movimiento 15-M (Indignados) but more of them are organized by the labor unions, which are pretty powerful.  Yes, May Day in Spain is cause for a big, big celebration (with big, big marches).

Sign on a tent of the Indignados encampment:  "Nothing moves unless you push.  Civil Disobedience Now."

Strikes in Spain are not like the strikes that have come to my attention in the United States.  The strikes I think of from here (both from being physically present when they took place, and from my studies of United States history when I was a graduate student) shut things down, or at least they try to.  There is often a lot of violence and confrontation associated with them, where the police (many times egged on by big capital) go in there with billy clubs, truncheons, rubber bullets and the like and try to break them up.  I also come up with the image of dockworkers on strike generally fighting pretty hard (and pretty violently) against the (violent) "forces of law and order."

The strikes in Spain, however...speaking only from what I personally know...are different.  For example, when I heard that Iberia Airlines planned to be on strike for an entire month last spring, I worried that I wouldn't be able to make it to the festival in Berlin.

The strike was settled before my flight date, but it turns out, I needn't have worried.  "Being on strike" meant that for one day of the week (Mondays), there were almost no flights.  The rest of the week, airplanes left on their normal schedule and on Mondays, I believe that some flights left with either their regular pilots or other, experienced personnel at the controls.

A union building (CGT) last winter.  See translation below.

Translation of signs on the CGT union building:  (on the left) "Ms. Pelayo [the mayor], when will it be?  No pay for four months."  and (on the right) "The struggle is in the street.  Join in the General Strike."  and (below, center) "Unemployment and exploitation:  paternalistic terrorism."

Then, there's the bus strike in Jerez, which has been going on for many months, perhaps even for over a year.  The strike doesn't mean that there are no buses.  It means that they come around less frequently.  It also means that the bus drivers march to city hall every week.  They have marched so often that they decided to liven things up with drummers.  And they have marched so frequently that the drummers have gotten to be pretty good.

Sorry that I have no photos of this.  I never had my still camera with me at the right time.

So what's with the strikes and demonstrations (and there are plenty more beyond the few I´ve mentioned)?

Well, in the case of the bus drivers, the city hasn't paid them their full wages for months and months and months and months.  In fact, last winter, the city didn't pay any of the city workers (except, I think, the administrators) for over three months.  THAT led to city workers camping out in tents in front of city hall.

One of the protestors' tents with City Hall in the background.

As for the Iberia pilots, I think they got paid, but their wages were drastically cut.

My point it that, although I understand things are different in the capitol city of Madrid, and the northern major city of Barcelona, in the south of Spain people are more civil.  They are more patient, if you will.  They are not out to ruin anyone's life, or business, or what have you.  I'll even point out that the degree of violent crime is much, much less in Spain (especially southern Spain) than in the United States.

A more civil, and more civilized, place...even if its financial sector and its administrators are messing things up  (current ones as well as the past ones...but for different reasons).

OUR NEXT POST will be about ... comparing flamenco with tap dance and Afro-Peruvian zapateo.