“Hello everyone. You are not in Caracas, you are in Madrid. And in Madrid, the right to demonstrate is voluntarily and consciously restricted,” greeted the leader of the CCOO, Unai Sordo, in front of the 2,000 trade unionists gathered in front of the employers’ headquarters on September 26. Confusion was the general tone. The faithful, the press and even the deputies who approached the mobilization against the CEOE did not know where to stand. Most of the demonstrators were on a sidewalk. On the other hand, the scene and the CCOO and UGT union leaders denounce that this is the latest “boycott” maneuver by José Luis Martínez-Almeida of his demonstrations in the capital, obstacles that the City Hall denies.
“I think that in a democratic country what cannot be is that we encounter so many difficulties every time we want to exercise our rights and this is how we will send it to Mr. Almeida,” he said. deplored the general secretary of the UGT to the Community. in the aforementioned demonstration in Madrid, Marina Prieto. Paloma López, general secretary of the region’s CCOO, denounced the fact that the City Hall “systematically violates the fundamental rights included in the Constitution linked to the right of association, freedom of association, assembly and strike.”
Faced with “administrative obstacles” and municipal ordinances in hand, CCOO and UGT criticize the increasing limitations on the location of their demonstrations in Madrid in recent years and the ever-increasing restrictions on their celebrations. For example, in the use of loudspeakers or megaphones, stages and distribution of information brochures, which other social and neighborhood groups have also denounced.
The protest against employers to demand the reduction of the working day has made union leaders explode against the mayor of Madrid, but it is only the latest chapter in a long series of others, argue the workers’ confederations.
Madrid City Hall rejects it. “The municipality of Madrid City Hall categorically denies creating problems or administrative obstacles for demonstrations on public roads organized by the CCOO and UGT unions,” responds the City Hall.
8M and location changes
Among previous clashes with the government of José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the majority unions highlight the changes in location and restrictions on the traditional concentration of unions on the morning of 8M, International Women’s Day. A mobilization that they used to organize in front of the City Hall, in Cibeles Square, and that the Martínez-Almeida City Hall refused them because it concerned the Paseo de la Luz.
After offering another location, which was also refused, “the town hall sent us to the small square of the Reina Sofía museum,” union sources indicate. After having organized the event there in recent years, the town hall also refused them the use of sound systems in 2024.
The Town Hall maintained that the refusal to grant the acoustic authorization was justified because the event took place less than 150 meters from a music school, but the unions described the maneuver as “censorship”, so as not to having given them the possibility of requesting another location since it was already “out of time”.
Sources from the municipal government respond to this media by accusing the unions of not having respected the required deadlines, of not having presented “all the appropriate documentation” to the Public Roads Office of the Town Hall “within one month of notice”.
“Not only did the Madrid City Council not pose any obstacle to the holding of these CCOO and UGT events, but quite the contrary: their processing was facilitated, because they were submitted after the deadline and there was little time left to examine them. documentation, request the obligatory reports and authorize the exercise of the activity,” they argue at the Consistory.
The unions warn that “it is simply impossible” to meet these deadlines “and the Town Hall knows it”. To organize an event, you must inform the Government Delegation in advance, which imposes a maximum deadline of 30 days. The Delegation consults the relevant Town Hall in case there is a reason why the event cannot take place. Thus, “we cannot present all the documentation” more than a month later, they say in the union centers.
May 1st with unassembled scene
Another of the most important clashes took place on May 1, the great day of the labor movement. “Madrid City Hall is already doing enough with blockades and boycotts of union demonstrations. It doesn’t come from now, it doesn’t just come from today, but they already demonstrated on May 1st,” Unai Sordo said during the demonstration against the bosses.
“It’s a day where there are a lot of things to prepare, a very complex scenario and where authorizations are requested well in advance,” union sources explain. Although we had authorization to mobilize from 7:30 a.m., “we were prevented from setting up the stage until almost 10 a.m.”, add these sources, a delay which they consider unjustifiable. Madrid City Hall did not respond to questions from this media about the reasons for the delay.
So the march on Madrid’s Gran Vía had to move more slowly, with more stops than usual, while workers hurriedly set up the stage. “We were crossing Callao [a pocos metros del escenario donde se leen los manifiestos finales] and sound, screen, etc. were not yet installed,” underline the unions, who denounce that the Town Hall exposed them to a risk for the safety of their equipment.
The scenarios are another element of confrontation with the Town Hall. On November 3, 2022, CCOO and UGT organized a demonstration with delegates from across Spain to demand wage increases for employers in the midst of an inflationary crisis. A march of three columns, which converged towards the Plaza Mayor of the capital. The unions had requested the installation of a stage for the occasion, which was rejected by the Almeida town hall.
“They refused us the truck for reasons of weight, we reduced everything we could and finally we put in place something simple, but very far from what was planned,” explain union sources, who recall that concerts in large numbers of people gather in this same square during festivals like San Isidro.
Demonstration against CEOE: last minute authorization and complaint
And finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the protest against employers in favor of reducing working hours. “It seems surreal that the delegation gives us permission to demonstrate on that side, and this morning Madrid City Hall gives us permission to stage the stage on the other side of the street,” said Pepe Álvarez, secretary general of the UGT, to explain the lack of control and the delay in the start of the event called for September 26.
Authorization from Madrid City Hall also came at the last minute, shortly before the event took place. “That the municipal council does this today at 9 a.m. is an act of boycott of this gathering. They don’t do it just because it’s not a coincidence. They could have done it three or four days ago, surely we would have had time to modify the delegation’s resolution,” Álvarez said.
Not only did the permission come at the last minute, but it also resulted in a divided venue (with the stage on the sidewalk in front of the rally) and no permission to install speakers, which prevented protesters from across the street to hear the speeches of union leaders. The unions chose to localize certain sounds, even if, despite this, “we couldn’t hear anything” on the other side of the sidewalk, one of the participants explained to this media.
Madrid City Hall states that “no noise was allowed” in front of the employer’s headquarters because it “was located less than 150 meters from a school”.
Eventually, during the speeches, the demonstrators ended up approaching the stage from the road, bypassing the authorized location and blocking the street, despite warnings from the police cordon. Result: a police complaint to the unions for violation of the municipal authorization to demonstrate.
Paloma López denounced that the lack of control generated between the Delegation and the City Hall “puts colleagues from the state security forces and agencies in a complicated situation, so that in the end, what they are constantly looking for ends up being product, that we have clashes and we think that we have a problem in the working class, nothing is further from reality,” defended the general secretary of CCOO in Madrid. “This has to stop. This disturbs the state security forces and agencies and us,” recognized the leader of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez.
