The Diplomat
The labour staff of the Spanish Consulates and Embassy in the United Kingdom and Germany have gone on indefinite strike to demand an increase in their salaries, which have been frozen since 2008.
The indefinite strike was called by the trade unions CSIF, CCOO and UGT last March 14 at the three Spanish Consulates General in the United Kingdom (London, Manchester and Edinburgh) and at the Spanish Embassy in London. In addition, the workers of these centers held a protest march this past Monday from the Consulate General of Spain in Manchester.
The measure came after “months of negotiations in which it has not been possible to respond to the demands of the collective, which through numerous writings has brought to the attention of both the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation (José Manuel Albares) and the director general of the Foreign Service the precarious situation in which many of the workers find themselves, aggravated by the impact of Brexit on the British economy,” according to CSIF.
According to the conveners, the labour staff without agreement abroad suffers wage freeze since 2008, a particularly worrying situation for workers in the United Kingdom where, after the country’s exit from the European Union, inflation has soared to its highest point in the last 30 years.
On the other hand, sources of the Foreign Service Labor Staff (PLEX) in Berlin indicated to the digital newspaper The Objective that the workers of the General State Administration in the capital of Germany -about 90 people- joined the indefinite strike this past Monday. The strike will be repeated every Monday for a month between 10:30 and 12:30. The strikers denounce the precarious labor situation in which they live due to the loss of purchasing power after almost 14 years of wage freeze and demand a pay rise and equal pay for all workers in the same category, regardless of their seniority.
“The Spanish administration continues to destroy public employment in Germany at a level considerably higher than what has been happening in the same field in other countries. Between 2008 and 2018, AGE jobs in Germany have suffered a brutal decline that stands at 18.1%, although the number of Spanish residents in that country has increased by 48.6% in the same period,” denounced UGT, CCOO and CSIF in a joint statement.
