No lines at Barcelona airport during first day of indefinite strike

After weeks of up to three-hour-waits at the security check, and hundreds of travelers losing their flights, it looks like normality may have returned to Barcelona airport. On Monday morning at 8 o’clock there were no lines at the security controls. According to AENA, the state owned company in charge of the management of all Spanish airports, there was a maximum wait of 10 minutes.

But the situation is far from being resolved. It is the first day of an indefinite strike announced by the employees of Eulen, a private company responsible for the security check at several Spanish airports such as Barcelona, and whose partial strikes had caused massive lines at both terminals. As Catalan News informed, workers had claimed a salary raise and better working conditions such as additional personnel especially during the summer months. There had been complaints by Eulen workers who said they had to work up to 16 hours daily. The latest offer, by the Catalan government who had participated as a mediator, was turned down by the vast majority of Eulen employees only last weekend.

In face of an indefinite strike, the Spanish government has imposed a 90% minimum service requirement on Eulen workers, arguing that the strike put the functioning of a basic infrastructure at risk. Also, the Spanish executive is preparing the papers to force the workers to accept a compulsory arbitration, which has to be approved by the Council of Ministers. Eulen workers have already denounced this compulsory arbitration and are prepared to go to court over it because they consider their right to strike is being violated.

On Monday morning, between 2 to 3 Guardia Civil agents began working at each security checkpoint in order to “protect national security” as the Minister of Public Works, Iñigo de la Serna, put it. At the same time he pointed out that this was only a temporary action and not a solution to the conflict. Meanwhile, the Eulen workers on strike at the airport explained to ACN that they have filed a complaint before the Employment Inspection Office on Monday about the treatment of workers by some Guardia Civil agents.

The Spanish government’s plans to force the workers into compulsory arbitration was highly criticized by the Barcelona city government on Monday. According to its spokesperson the problem cannot be solved without a negotiated solution between the parties involved, which are Eulen, AENA and the Spanish Ministry of Public Works. A meeting between the Catalan and Spanish governments as well as the Barcelona city council to discuss further steps is set for this Monday evening.

Left wing coalition En Comú Podem has even called for the resignation of the president of AENA, José Manuel Vargas, since they consider him the maximum authority in the management of the Spanish airports, which led to outsourcing services to private companies without defending workers’ rights. They also criticized his “lack of concern” over the massive problems at the Barcelona airport. A spokesperson and deputy of En Comú Podem also demanded more responsible action by the Spanish government in order to push for negotiations to definitively end the labor conflict.

Most airports in Spain are owned and managed by the government in Madrid through the semipublic company AENA. Thus it was AENA who decided to outsource security at the airport and who appointed a private company called Eulen in June 2016 for a period of two years. The Catalan government has no power over airport policy. It only owns some airfields and two minor airports in Lleida and La Seu d’Urgell. However, it does have responsibility in labor mediation for conflicts taking place in Catalonia. In this context, the Catalan government entered as mediator and put a new proposal on the negotiation table which included a personnel and salary increase. Eulen workers agreed on the basic lines of the offer but expect a more detailed proposal.

The labor conflict has also reached into the political field leading to a clash between the Spanish central government and the Catalan government. Barcelona’s airport is a key infrastructure in Catalonia, and is the second biggest airport in Spain. Barcelona mayor Ada Colau admitted that a more decentralized management of the airport would allow for a better management. Political pro-independence groups as well as the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) have claimed that the Spanish Government and AENA’s passivity in this situation is a way of making Barcelona and Catalonia look bad in the run up to the referendum on independence, set for October 1.