Javier Pacheco: "I've had to do everything I can to stabilize the family finances"

BarcelonaUnion leader Javier Pacheco (Barcelona, ​​1970) grew up in a working-class family, with a stay-at-home mother and a father who worked in the plastics industry. "They were small companies, and Dad changed jobs many times. I saw how he suffered the consequences of minor crises because he couldn't find stability for more than ten years at the same company," he recalls. This family experience shaped his career path: "My father always advised us to end up working for a big company." That's how he ended up working at Nissan. Before that, however, he had already entered the workforce at a very young age, at 14, as a scrap metal collector: "I was starting adolescence and needed money to go out, and there wasn't any at home." He completed vocational training in the automotive sector and has never stopped working. In 1990, Pacheco joined the Workers' Commissions (CCOO). Seven years later he was elected union representative for the company, and from 2017 to 2025 he served as general secretary of CCOO in Catalonia. "I never thought this would continue. I thought it was a decision for a period of my life," Pacheco explained in statements toCompaniesAnd he adds: "This wasn't my father's or my mother's fight, because they never had that political background. They came from the Franco era, from when the motto was 'don't get involved in politics.' But these are the values of a working class and a working-class family."

"I will never be grateful enough for the window of opportunity it has opened for me: the knowledge, the social connections, being able to pursue a vocation of conviction like the one I have," he affirms. However, he acknowledges that his intense dedication to unionism has entailed personal sacrifices: "The relationship and time spent with my daughters has obviously been greatly limited by my union work, something that can't be recovered, but which can be compensated for in other ways." In a conversation with them, he explains, they admitted that "a good part of who they are today is thanks to the values they learned at home," which is why they have dedicated themselves to what they have.

Regarding remuneration, Pacheco distinguishes between financial and personal compensation: "We must ensure that those of us who work in organizations of this kind can have lunch and dinner every day. But that's not enough. To dedicate yourself to this, you need a personal return; it has to be a calling." "If we analyze this situation economically and compare it to other areas of society that may have a similar responsibility to that of a union general secretary, it's clearly not well-paid," he says.

The period he suffered most financially was when he moved out of his parents' house with his wife and daughter: "We were very young and we suffered a lot. We did everything we could to stabilize the family finances." "We didn't have enough money; we never made it to the end of the month. We had a kind of revolving credit line with my parents. I would pay them back the money they lent me, but the following month I had to ask for more. The same thing happened every month," explains the union member, who says he experienced it with a lot of stress: "It was a kind of curse."

He doesn't consider himself a particularly thrifty person, but those experiences taught him a lesson: "We like to live day to day and in the we say carpe"But always trying to make ends meet and with emergency insurance to avoid going through that situation again."

In this sense, the most important purchase he has made in his life was the apartment: "Since, for better or for worse, I haven't had much room to make decisions that involved this kind of reflection, I also haven't had much time to adjust the mortgage by adding a car loan. And I have regretted that, because financially it's a very bad deal. The family finances weren't shaken, but I could have avoided it," he explains.

Currently, Pacheco is the Secretary of Union Action and Strategic Transitions for CCOO. He has held the position in Madrid since mid-2025. "I would like to finish the project, which for unions is usually eight years."