Strike in Barcelona's social services: "We cannot serve citizens in full condition"

BarcelonaDirect citizen service workers at Barcelona City Council have taken to the streets in another day of strike, which has caused basic social services, direct violence care, and libraries to operate at half capacity this Tuesday. The protesters' main grievance is the refusal to accept the new labor agreement that the council has signed with the CCOO, UGT, and CSIF unions, as they consider it to be a "loss of rights for the professionals" in this sector and, in turn, impacts "the quality of services and the rights of citizens." The council has downplayed the impact of the strike and indicated that at 10 a.m., only 3.8% of the 13,000 workers had joined the call.

The protest was called by minority unions CGT, ABACOS, and Intersindical, who believe that the agreement further exacerbates the labor situation of professionals at the Municipal Institute of Social Services, the Citizen Service Office, and the SARA services for women victims of gender-based violence. The library staff have also joined the call. During the march through the city center, they chanted slogans against precariousness and workload, denouncing that they increasingly have to attend to a higher number of cases with greater complexity. Since February, these direct service professionals have held partial strikes every Thursday, and in March, they already carried out another 24-hour strike.

"The social sector is what has been left most exposed with the new agreement, we are the poor relation of the City Council," denounce two social workers, banner in hand. They state that they encounter citizens who are increasingly facing difficulties in their daily lives and that, far from being able to offer them solutions, social services only have the capacity to provide "band-aids" because they are at their limit in terms of staff, resources, and solutions. "We social workers have 80 families to attend to, so it's impossible to follow up," explains another professional, who also points out that a large part of their working day has to be dedicated to "protocols and reports." "In practice, we workers are more like managers than social workers," they say.

Fernando, another social worker, explains that saturation in social services causes citizens with urgent needs to wait too long to get an efficient solution. This, he insists, causes "discomfort and emotional exhaustion", especially when requesting housing or financial assistance to pay for a rental room. "We cannot serve citizens in full conditions", he laments.