MALLORCA TODAY - Hotel strike due for 20 July in the Balearics

The two main unions representing workers in the hostelry sector in the Balearics have announced that there will be 24-hour strike on 20 July. This is a consequence of the unions not being able to reach an agreement with employers regarding salaries and other employment conditions. The unions say that there may be a further strike in August if agreements still cannot be reached. The hostelry sector covers hotels and also restaurants.

MALLORCA TODAY - "Revolution" called for by union

1500 or so people demonstrating in Palma might signal the onset of revolution, but UGT union leader in the Balearics, Lorenzo Bravo, has called for this and the occupation of ministry buildings in protest against education and health cuts, to which has now been added the threat of a rise in IVA (VAT) next year.

See more: El Mundo

MALLORCA TODAY - Unions demand 3% higher wages from hotels and restaurants

The negotiations between unions and businesses that are threatening to cause disruption to the tourism season if they don't go the way the unions want them are still dragging on, the unions making it clear that they expect a 3% wage rise from hoteliers and the restaurant sector as well as a reduction in the working week to 35 hours.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Unions and government negotiate strike minimum services

The four main trade unions co-ordinating the general strike in the Balearics are in discussion with the regional government over minimum service provision during the strike (on 29 March), the main issues seemingly concerning public transport and health services.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - More unions support Balearics' general strike

The way things work is that unions in various regions have to declare separately if they are going to support protests such as general strikes, and so it is that two more major unions - USO and STEI-i - have joined with the CCOO and UGT in saying they will form a united front in the general strike planned for 29 March.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Unions delay agreements for 2012 season

Further to yesterday's note regarding union negotiations in respect of agreements with hotels, transport operators and businesses in the complementary sector (restaurants etc.), more is emerging. The unions are holding off on signing off agreements, the next meeting with the hotels not planned until 12 April. What this does is just add to a sense of uncertainty ahead of what is due to be a record year for tourism in Mallorca.

See more: Ultima Hora

Unravelling: Protests and opportunism

On one day, events come together that forge the impression of an unravelling. The word unravelling, in its literal sense, means an undoing or an unknitting of fabric. In an abstract sense, and as the word is often applied, it is an undoing of a different type of fabric, that of society for example.

The one day in question was Monday. The events that came together were a protest against non-payments to ambulance workers, a threat of legal action against the Balearic Government over non-payments to public transport operators, an announcement of sit-ins and a strike by university and secondary education students, and news of alleged over-reaction by police against protesting students in Valencia.

Charges of disproportionate measures being adopted by police in Valencia are not new. They were also made in respect of efforts to clear "indignado" demonstrators last year. The protests staged in many Spanish cities by the indignados and the responses by some police forces were, though, against a political backdrop that had yet to be properly coloured in. It now has been. And this is how it begins. Protests of different types. An unravelling.

At the weekend, there had been another protest, that against the national government's labour reforms. To the fore was Lorenzo Bravo, secretary-general in the Balearics of the UGT union, a Dereck Chisora-David Haye of industrial relations trash talk, upping the ante in publicising the fight with the government by labelling President Bauzá a fascist.

The allusion to Spain's history is a dark colour to be added to the swatch with which the political backdrop is suffused, one embellished by a legal system that permits a tarnishing of Spain's reputation. The actions of a right-wing union with undeniable Francoist sympathies, in forcing the pursuit of Judge Baltasar Garzón and in also seeking the subpoena of Princess Cristina, were born out of democratic sophism; the targets - Garzón's brand of legalistic independence and the royal family - are integral to Spain's democracy and they are being hounded.

The events of Monday and at the weekend and the manipulation of the legal system are not coincidental. They are an opportunistic and inevitable collision within the unravelling framework. Yet, the inevitability of, for example, the public transport operators' federation seeking legal redress might not become reality. Nor is it inevitable that individual bus companies might actually stop services, as they are threatening to.

There is always brinkmanship, and suspension of bus services by companies responsible for places such as Pollensa and Can Picafort, just as the tourism season starts to get underway, would be unlikely to happen. It is not as though we haven't been here before. Pharmacies threatened to pull down their shutters in protest at not being paid by the IB-Salut health service, but the threat didn't materialise, or at least, it hasn't materialised yet.

Things have moved on, though. Pharmacies not being paid was an issue soon after the change of regional government last June. The strains are far greater than they were and the roll call of services being cut or finding themselves without funds grows longer.

At some point, one of the threats will be realised. If it were that of the bus companies, notwithstanding the government's pre-emption by declaring a suspension of services illegal, the ramifications would be significant; in terms of tourism reputation if nothing else. And while the ambulance workers are protesting and the pharmacies remain unpaid, what of another element of the health service - hospital emergency units?

These units have become overstretched as it is, leading to resignations, such as that of the director of Son Espases' emergency department. When the units start to fill up with tourists who have either chucked themselves off balconies, had too much to drink or suffered a severe reaction to a mosquito bite, the last thing the hospitals (or the government) would want would be a "Sun, Sea and A&E" film crew hovering in the background, showing them struggling to cope.

The unions and the students are playing their expected roles as usual suspects when it comes to protest. Their actions will be easier for governments, nationally and regionally, to handle in terms of PR. But these actions are only beginning. Valencia for now, but over the next months?

When hospital directors, pharmacies, bus companies, ambulance workers - to name but a few - add their voices to those who might simply be dismissed as regular agitators, protest is less easy to handle. And all the while, lurking somewhere, is the opportunism of the non-governmental right and further right. On one day, events come together that forge the impression of an unravelling. How about 23 February? Do you know what anniversary this marks?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Bauzá labelled a fascist by union leader

Lorenzo Bravo, secretary-general of the UGT union in the Balearics has called President Bauzá a fascist, later explaining that it was not the intention to insult the president but to draw attention to a call for him to set up a dialogue with the unions as part of the tackling of the islands' economic crisis. This is not the first time that Bravo has levelled an insult at the government. In September last year, he branded the Partido Popular pigs and had to publicly apologise when faced with possible legal action.


Update (17 February): The government has instructed the Balearics Attorney-General to consider legal action against Bravo.

Kicking Off: Cuts, Catalan and Conflict

I know, I know. I should write about turquoise seas, dramatic mountain landscapes, quaint old Mallorcans acting traditionally. I should use the "beautiful" word. I should consult only my tourism brochure thesaurus, litter my every sentence with superlatives. I know, I know.

"What me? Write about politics?" "Yea, as if you don't". Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who's interested. But then I know I am not, as I correspond with those who make it clear that I am not alone. "It's all going to kick off." "No, it won't kick off." I wish I could share such optimism. It was a pessimistic view that had made me suggest it would kick off. It had been half-joking, but only where one of the rescue agencies was concerned. "The Royal Navy and Ryanair repatriating us all." Pull the short straw and there would be O'Leary kicking you back down the steps if you dared to bring on excess baggage, your dearest possessions stashed inside a hurriedly-packed old suitcase.

Will it kick off? When will it kick off? What will be the starting-point for it to kick off? Or perhaps it already has in an as yet quiet way.

You can't blame Bauzá and his government for some of it. These government public companies, for example; what on earth were they all doing? Four or five of them with IT included in their titles. Was it possible that they were duplicating information technology effort? Very likely. The Balearics Tourism Agency is to be combined with the Foundation for Sustainable Development after all. What will become of the foundation's Jorge Campos? He'll probably be kept on. He and Bauzá are chums.

Ninety-two of these companies are to go, along with 800 jobs. Shame for the workers, but what was the point of them? The point seemed to be that it cost over 100 million euros a year to employ them.

The unions are making noises, but then unions always make noises. They are threatening "permanent conflict" if the government doesn't back down on its promise to get rid of the full-time union worker representatives in public administration. It won't back down. Permanent conflict. Will it come? Has it arrived? Has the kicking-off started?

The university hasn't got money to pay salaries. Its financial situation, poor anyway, has got worse. It's short of 20 million of government cash. Its budget had already been cut by 12%. How much more can it lose? Students, always students, gave Bauzá a hard time when he put in an appearance, not just about money but also about the attacks on the use of Catalan. The Obra Cultural Balear is going to take the attacks on Catalan to Europe. Cuts and the language thing. They are a powerful cocktail.

The cuts have only just begun though. There need to be more. Without them, the pharmacists, still owed millions, the constructors, still owed millions, will strike or close or do whatever it takes to get their money from a government with no money.

Because there isn't any money. Well, there's some. Some lurking somewhere. In the nick of time, Palma town hall has found some to put into the coffers of the city's transport service operator, so that wages can be paid. There had been a delay in payment. The workers protested at the town hall, as they have every right to. But what's to become of Palma town hall? It needs to find 42.6 million euros to pay banks by the end of December. If it doesn't, what then? It'll scrape by somehow, only to fight a losing battle later. And remember that thing about the Palacio de Congresos being a bottomless pit. When, if, it is finished next year and is meant to be under Palma's administration, there won't be any money in the bottom of the pit to maintain it.

Things are falling apart. The centre cannot hold. The centre holds only in that central office of the Partido Popular is instructing the Balearic Government. Former President Antich, remember him, and none of this is of course any of his doing, has described Bauzá as being on the radical right, and it's not a compliment. He has also said that the regional government is a subsidiary of central office. What's that? I think I've been saying this. For some time. Give me back my line, Antich.

Is that when it really kicks off? After the national elections? Or what about at the start of November? All those unemployment queues at the end of the season. All those people snaking along the street, demanding their winter payment from the government. From a government with no money. They should get a job. Where? All the hotels are closed. The airlines have stopped running. Does it all really kick off before Christmas? And what of Christmas? Will it be cancelled?

I know, I know. I should write about turquoise seas, dramatic mountain landscapes. Lose myself and lose you in a land where the sun always shines. It was nice while it lasted.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for September 2011

Alcúdia tourist day - 9 September 2011
August's tourists - 2 September 2011
Balearic Government, questions about spending by previous - 20 September 2011
Bellevue to be split in two - 4 September 2011
Bullfight in Barcelona, last - 23 September 2011
Burka ban in Sa Pobla - 3 September 2011
Celebrities - 19 September 2011
Constitution and budgetary stability - 13 September 2011
Cuts, public sector - 30 September 2011
Drinking and youth tourism - 16 September 2011
Drowning, weever fish and the sea - 14 September 2011
Fractional ownership and condohotels - 27 September 2011
GOB - 1 September 2011
Hundred days, Bauzá's first - 26 September 2011
Insult of President Bauzá by "L'Estel" magazine - 18 September 2011
Jorge Campos and Foundation for Sustainable Development - 25 September 2011
Madness at Mallorca Rocks - 11 September 2011
Melon fiesta, Vilafranca - 6 September 2011
Oktoberfests, Mallorca - 29 September 2011
Playa de Muro empty units - 21 September 2011
Playa de Palma survey - 28 September 2011
Political make believe in Mallorca and Spain - 24 September 2011
Return to school - 10 September 2011
Rugby World Cup - 7 September 2011
Smells of summer - 5 September 2011
Sports teams and tourism promotion - 22 September 2011
Tourism degree, Universitat de les Illes Balears - 8 September 2011
Tourism: necessity for change - 17 September 2011
Winter tourism - 12 September 2011
Worker representatives, elimination of - 15 September 2011

The Land Of Make Believe

I'd like to take you back in time. It was a time of the three-day week, unworkable governments that changed every few months, virtual national bankruptcy and massive union unrest. It was also a time of extremely long hair and flared jeans.

It was during this time that I was at university. In common with some others, it was a self-contained community, a campus. Some miles from the city, it operated under its own rules, a mini-state not immune to the wider world, but one in which a government existed together with forces of agitation and institutions bound up in sub-governments, committees, constitutions and rigged elections.

The forces of agitation were led by the students union, generally a collective of the far and less far left. Collegiate in make-up, the university had, in addition to the main union, eight union-ettes: student bodies for each college.

The government comprised university administrative bureaucrats and academics of various political colours. The lecturers had their own set-ups: the senior common rooms attached to the colleges, the more strident among their number being those who were well-known to Moscow and others who would have considered Enoch Powell a liberal.

The government practised a system of democracy in which there were innumerable committees and a senate. To the colleges were devolved responsibilities for this and that, while the colleges' individual unions - the junior common rooms - mirrored precisely the make-up of the main union. There was a president, a vice-president for internal affairs, one for external affairs, a treasurer, and so on.

Union meetings were interminable gatherings often devoted to the minutiae of whether ultra vires payments for supporting the Shrewsbury 3 or the Iranian 91 were constitutional or not. They always were, because the union politburo would make sure that they were. The mini-me unions, the junior common rooms, would concern themselves less with matters of national or international agitprop and more with securing the compliance of the rank and file. Bread and circuses: free beer, rubbish music acts and weekly discos.

No one ever actually questioned whether this system was right or not. It just was. It existed within a make-believe world. The campus was like Patrick McGoohan's Prisoner island, with one major difference - dissent, if not actively encouraged, could not be repressed. The only time it was, on any scale, was at the end of a two-week occupation of the administration building. The university had the temerity to put up campus rents so that what were little more than peppercorn acquired some salt. In we all went, but after two weeks of less-than-hygienic conditions, it was a relief when plod crashed through a wall one night and carried us out. And plod were no doubt delighted at the overtime payments.

Quite what the occupation cost, heaven alone knows. But then money wasn't really much object. The university, its students, its staff existed thanks largely to UK government and taxpayer beneficence. It was its own world, one in which politics were entirely divorced from real life. It was a land of make believe, a play thing for the mid-70s' wizards of "Oz" magazine.

The point of all this is that Mallorcan and Spanish politics have a lot in common with those days. The make believe was that forged after Franco, a world of idealistic institutions, decentralisation, duplicated responsibilities, inhabited by all manner of political groups and parties, supported by the seemingly endless generosity of first Europe and then a Spanish state with little comprehension of control.

No one thought to really question this system. It was allowed to grow, but it has, despite some 36 years of being, not cast off the immaturities that were evident in university days. Now we have situations in which a union leader can insult a political party, as Lorenzo Bravo of the UGT has insulted the Partido Popular government, calling them pigs. Back in the day, plod were those, while anyone who wasn't a card-carrying Trot was a fascist, and this, the fascist insult, is hurled around in all directions as well by the competing elements in the Castilian-Catalan argument.

The system is akin to that of the university. Governments embroiled in issues of questionable payments, the town halls and the Council of Mallorca mirrors of government, dealing in the bread and circuses of the fiestas with their booze, rubbish music acts and discos.

The days of bread and circuses are over, however. The money's run out. Real life for Mallorca and Spain has started. The playing and the make believe have to stop. Whether they will, though, is questionable. Here come plod.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

* Photo from 1975. God Bless Wilkins, otherwise known as ...

Union Bashing In A Balearics Style

Are the Balearics heading for a Thatcher moment? The enemy within given a sound man-bagging by the Iron Gentleman?

José Bauzá and his merry men are indulging in a spot of union bashing. This isn't the end of the brothers' power as we know it, but it might be the thin end of the industrial relations wedge. Where Bauzá leads (or is rather instructed by central office), so a Madrid newly coloured blue come November will follow.

It is becoming clearer why Bauzá has suddenly acquired an hirsute appearance. It is so he can look in the beard the likes of Cándido Mendez, the secretary-general of the UGT union. Mendez's fierce grey number makes Bauzá's designer accessory seem distinctly wimpish, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do, which is to not shave and look as hard as possible when confronting the ferocious Mendez.

The Thatcher moment, not that it actually is a Thatcher moment (yet), involves union worker representatives in the public sector. The Balearic Government is eliminating 89 of these representatives, 31 in the health sector, 34 in education and 24 in general services, along with a fund which pays for them. There are two classes of worker representatives, and the ones affected by the government's decision are those who, in effect, work full-time in their representative capacity.

As with much of anything of a political nature in the Balearics or Spain, there is a symbolic aspect to the worker representatives (found in both the public and private sectors), as they are an embodiment of workers' rights in law and under the constitution. The concept was taken from what was an established model in European countries such as Germany once democracy came to Spain. Prior to this, industrial relations didn't exist. There wasn't much industry to speak of and what relations there were tended to be somewhat one-sided; a snivelling waiter would be hauled out of a bar and a decree from the Generalísimo, announcing a 10% pay cut, would be nailed to his head.

The unions are none too impressed by the decision, and you would hardly expect them to react otherwise. The UGT (general workers) is threatening to break off relations with the government; the CCOO union believes the decision is the fore-runner of far wider cuts in the public service. Both unions accuse Bauzá and his boys of acting unilaterally and undemocratically.

A problem for the unions is that José Public might well not share their concerns. The representatives are known as "liberados sindicales", the liberado bit referring to the fact that they have been freed from their normal work. Yet the liberado tag has become something of a pejorative, as the function is seen as being a bit of a cushy number.

There is also a criticism that it observes a kind of Parkinson's Law. Work doesn't expand to fill available time, rather time expands to justify the work. And what is the work? This is another criticism, that the representative ends up indulging and supporting spurious worker grievances: Juan says that the new toilet paper in the factory loos has given him piles and so demands six months on the sick. This sort of thing.

This all said, the unions do have a legitimate beef. The government appears to have taken it upon itself to rip up an agreement dating back to 2006, and it did so at a meeting to which the unions were given a mere 24-hours notice. If Bauzá is wanting to appear to be playing the hard man, then he is succeeding, but at what price?

The government's action cannot be seen as one it has taken by itself. It may have ignored the unions, but it was a decision almost certainly taken for it elsewhere: in Madrid by the Partido Popular central office. Almost exactly a year ago, the idea of reducing (or scrapping) the worker representatives was getting a good airing. In Madrid. The president of the community of Madrid, the PP's Esperanza Aguirre, reckoned a reduction was a good idea, and so did the party's leader Mariano Rajoy. The idea has been bubbling away ever since, and, as mentioned previously, what the PP plans nationally it will try out, thanks to the compliant Bauzá, in the Balearics.

The government will argue it's all to do with saving money, but the actual saving is very small - a couple of hundred grand. The move is, therefore, political and political alone. It is also, in its own way, symbolic, and you don't need to be an expert in politics or industrial relations to appreciate what it symbolises.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.