Osona: a thriving industry and a social powder keg
BarcelonaSince 2019, the absolute value added (GVA) – an indicator similar to gross domestic product that measures the level of economic activity in a region – of the Osona region has grown by 7.1%. This rate is significantly higher than the Catalan average (2.7%) and is only surpassed by Garrotxa (8.4%) and Gironès (7.3%), according to the latest data.Regional economic yearbookfrom BBVA. This economic progress is largely due to the strength of the meat industry, which boasts giants in the sector. It is estimated that around 30,000 pigs are slaughtered daily in the region's abattoirs, a task that, surprisingly, is still largely done manually. Therefore, there is a strong demand for labor in Osona, primarily supplied by the foreign population, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, while in 2015 three out of every ten workers were foreign, now it is six out of ten.
ARA wanted to verify in situ The question remains whether the region, which has seen a surge in slaughterhouse capacity in recent years, has implemented any kind of plan to accommodate the thousands of foreign workers who have settled there. The answer is disheartening. It's as if no one anticipated the need for housing, public transportation, and social services for all these people who keep the slaughterhouses and related industries running every day. There has been an alarming lack of planning on the part of the administration, forcing workers earning €1,800 a month to live in tents or tiny rooms. Nor did anyone foresee that these workers wouldn't live near the company and would need to commute, leading to a flourishing underground economy centered around transportation. And that's not even mentioning the strain on social services in the municipalities.
Mayors often have to face overwhelming situations alone, without even knowing what their neighbors are doing, situations that have led to a veritable social powder keg. Some have already unabashedly embraced the far-right's anti-immigration rhetoric, which is expected to see a significant increase in the next elections. However, Osona is the prime example of immigrants doing the work that locals don't want to do. The meat industry is big business, but it also has many negative externalities, both ecological—like the problem of manure, for example—and social, which the region must bear.
What cannot be done, however, is to commit to a growth model that requires foreign labor and then fail to anticipate the consequences. It's called strategic planning, and it means that if a company needs to double or triple its workforce, someone has to think about where they'll live, how they'll get there, which school their children will attend, and so on. This is a responsibility largely shared among the companies themselves, the local councils, the regional government, and the national government, each within their respective areas of competence. Failing to do so—and right now it's not happening—could have disastrous consequences for community life, social cohesion, and, in the long term, for the region's economy itself.
