Welfare state or unfair state?

The street is once again buzzing with protests, this time it’s about wages and workers’ rights. More and more labour conflicts are emerging, involving a wide range of occupational sectors who depend on Generalitat budgets. There was much tension at the protests yesterday, when the firefighter’s demonstration and the primary care doctor’s protest converged in front of the Catalan parliament.

Both the doctors, with their white robes and their banners, and the firefighters, with their helmets, uniforms, sirens and firecrackers, were intent on getting inside parliament. The Catalan police arrayed in front of the building, who managed to close the doors, were wrestling with both groups of protesters. A firefighter was arrested, accused of violence against authority, but after being held inside parliament for a while, he was released.

The atmosphere of social tension also increased yesterday with the first day of the university sector’s two-day strike, and today it will increase even more as public education workers from all the other institutions are called to strike. A two-hour stoppage for Generalitat civil servants has also been called today by the confederation of alternative trade unions in Catalonia (IAC). And Generalitat civil servants will be called to strike again on December 12 for one day, in this case by the mainstream trade unions UGT and CCOO.

All the different protest movements - the doctors, the firefighters, the university students, the primary school teachers and all kinds of civil servants - are making their demands from different platforms, but their demands have the same foundations: the wage precariousness and working conditions imposed by budget cuts and the economic crisis.