Sant Sadurní d’Anoia (Barcelona) seems to live in the long hangover of a Three Kings Day. Rubbish bins, household recycling bins and street corners are overflowing with garbage bags, boxes, paper, bottles, cardboard and packaging. The picture invites us to think of waking up to an intense revelry, but the 12,840 residents of this municipality of Penedès, some 40 kilometers from Barcelona, are not in for a party. For two weeks they have been living among piles of rubbish due to a strike by the collection service. The situation has worsened to the point that the City Council declared an alert last Wednesday for “very high risk to public health.” The presence of rats and insects has multiplied and the decomposition of the waste produces the filtration of unhealthy liquids towards the sewage system. This Friday a meeting was convened that brought together the company PreZero, which manages waste collection, the workers and the affected municipalities. “The strike continues,” said Slimane Chatar, union adviser to the strikers, after the meeting.
The garbage collectors’ protest affects five towns in the Penedès, the main cava-producing area in the world. In addition to Sant Sadurní, where companies such as Freixenet and Codorníu have their headquarters, the strike also affects Torrelavit, Olèrdola, Sant Quintí de Mediona and Sant Pere de Riudebitlles. In total, there are about 22,000 residents affected. Diego García lives in Sant Sadurní and recounts the effects of the accumulation of rubbish on public roads: “The other day I had to put on elbow-length gloves and put the organic bags that had been thrown in the street into an industrial sack because we had a lot of white worms in front of the house”, he says.
The workers’ representatives justify the strike in the need to guarantee the working conditions of the workforce, of about thirty employees. They allude to the fact that the contract awarded to PreZero freezes salaries for the next eight years. They explain that the average salary is now around 26,000 euros gross, but that there is a “double scale”. They claim that the 3.5% salary increase contemplated in some contracts must be transversal and applicable to all equally. In addition, it is also intended to negotiate an increase according to the CPI. The consistories reply that the strikers have not respected even the minimum services.
The door-to-door collection system has been in place at various points in the Penedès for 15 years, but now there is no proper order or recycling. In Sant Sadurní, bags of all colors draw a mountain range of waste that expands through most of the roads. The piles of rubbish in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento attract television cameras, while neighbors and merchants manage as best they can. “The municipal brigade has tried to collect something, but there is no way. We stack everything we can and then we are going to throw it away”, says Francesc Rosell, owner of a busy pastry shop. And throw it where? The council, governed by Junts, decided to set up half a dozen “emergency points” where you can leave your garbage.
The measure caused the instant creation of open-air landfills in various parts of the municipality. Francesc Pérez lives in front of one of the vacant lots set up as a garbage dump, right next to a supermarket and near a public school. “This looks like a pilgrimage, and there are people who take the opportunity to throw everything there, even televisions and computers,” says Pérez. “If instead of enabling these open spaces, each one had had to swallow the garbage in front of the house, the strike would already be over,” he reasons.
What affects the most is what happens closest. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
The volume of waste accumulated in the “emergency points” forced the City Council to hire an express collection service, despite the opposition of the striking workers. The council alleges that the measure does not affect the right to strike. At noon this Friday, the bulldozers tried to collect the garbage and load it into large metal containers. “The Mossos d’Esquadra have been needed to avoid trouble,” said Manel Fernández, a neighbor who was drinking a cigar and a glass of cava in a nearby bar. “Poor people”, lamented Maria Carmen Prieto watching the machines work. Her grief, she said, was for the striking workers. “There is no right that they do not raise their salary, that garbage that they take out would have to be thrown in front of the town hall,” she considered.
“terrible stink”
“Of course it smells terrible, but you can’t have exploited workers, you have to negotiate seriously,” said Julián Navas, another neighbor. “In the town the strike is not so noticeable, because the garbage does not accumulate in the street,” analyzed Nani Casanovas, a resident of Torrelavit, 1,400 inhabitants.
The company, workers and affected town councils have agreed to continue negotiating next week, with the mediation of the Department of Labor of the Generalitat. Meanwhile, in the Penedès, the rubbish continues to pile up.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya at Facebook Y Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
read without limits
#Mountains #garbage #accumulate #cradle #cava #due #collection #strike