The prawns of the PP and the unions

MadridThe PP has once again made use of artificial intelligence (AI) to throw a dart at those it considers its opponents—a strategy it has copied from Donald Trump—. In this case, it is surprising because it has been aimed at the majority unions, CCOO and the UGT, which have a role recognized in the Constitution: if Alberto Núñez Feijóo arrives at the Moncloa, he will have to meet with them to, at the very least, talk about issues such as pensions or the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI). In fact, two years ago, Feijóo championed the role of unions as social partners at the UGT Congress.

Coinciding with the general strike day this November 11th, the PP's social network X account published an image in which three people could be seen wearing UGT and CCOO vests eating prawns, a photomontage that served to mock them. But beyond the mockery, the image gives off another even more relevant message: Is eating prawns a problem? Or is the problem that they are being eaten by unionists and not, for example, by business owners? Doesn't everyone have the right to eat prawns?

It is not the first time that the right has presented as a contradiction that someone from the left, in this case union representatives, who can also be workers, enjoy a consumption habit—a meal—that implies a product considered refined or expensive. This contradiction seeks to delegitimize and label the opponent as incoherent, as different sociologists have reflected, due to the fact that they enjoy a good that has historically been associated with the elite.

In this way, not only is classism revealed—placing prawns as food only for conservative sectors and the upper classes, which trade unionists or left-wing people cannot consume—but it also reveals what various sociologists have historically denounced regarding the judgments made about the diets of the general population or lower income groups, which is true that they are usually based on cheaper or ultra-processed products: ignoring that behind it lies an economic inequality that turns access to fresh, varied, or even organic food into a privilege. It is a distinction.

Perhaps the PP is fine with not hiding this discourse. After all, it is the same party that in Madrid, led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, approved during the Covid-19 pandemic not to resume the nutritious meal service for the 11,500 minors from low-income families for the remainder of that school year. Ayuso, on the other hand, signed express contracts with fast food companies, like Telepizza, so that vulnerable children would be fed for three months on pizza, hamburgers, or nuggets. Is this the food of the poorest people or left-wing people? The president of Madrid, however, eventually had to backtrack.

The PP posted the photo on the very day that, in fact, a large part of the State was stopping and mobilizing to demand not only that housing be a right, but that wages guarantee a dignified life. And part of that dignity begins, precisely, with the plate on the table.