Madrid cleaning strike ends with no-redundancy agreement
Monday, November 18, 2013 @ 12:03 PM
A CLEANING strike in Spain's capital has ended after 13 days following negotiations between unions, staff, franchise companies and the city council which went on for 15 hours non-stop.
During the two weeks of the strike, which was over plans to make 1,100 of the four cleaning firms' 6,000 members of staff redundant and slash wages for those left, Madrid police worked round the clock ensuring pickets did not get out of hand, and another cleaning company, Tragsa, was called in when the situation became intolerable.
They removed 60 tonnes of rubbish from the streets and, between Tragsa and the police, Madrid city council has paid for 8,716 additional hours' work.
But mayoress Ana Botella says 'not one cent' will come out of the taxpayer's pocket, and the entire costs will be passed on to the companies whose employees were on strike.
She has called for a law reform on workers' right to strike, saying the three million residents in the capital were 'held hostage' for two weeks as a result of a build-up of filth on the streets.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com