Majorca is facing five days of July strikes in hotels, restaurants and nightlife venues as unions walk out of talks. More than 180,000 workers are being urged to support walk-outs and street protests for five days next month.
Unless a last-minute agreement is reached between employers and unions, which at this stage looks highly unlikely, a huge percentage of the workforce will down tools on Thursday, July 10. This first day of action will then be followed by further strikes on July 18, 19, 25 and 31. The protests would come at the very height of the busy tourist season, when the Balearics, which include Majorca, Ibiza, and Menorca, are bursting with tourists, a huge number of them Brits. The strike action would affect services in hotels, restaurants, and nightlife establishments.
The alert was raised on June 26 after unions walked out on a lengthy meeting to try and resolve issues on the table, including pay rises and better conditions for workers.
The union UGT rejected an offer of an 11% wage increase, saying the gap between what they want and the employers’ offer was still “too great”.
José García Relucio, general secretary of the Federation of Services, Mobility and Consumption of UGT, said the talks “could not have gone worse” and charged the employers for “not moving enough” in remuneration.
At the same time, Javier Vich, president of the Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca (FEHM), described the lack of agreement as a “failure” and claimed the unions concentrate their strategy only on the wage increase, without considering “all the points” presented by the companies to modernise the agreement.
Despite the confrontation, Vich said that the employers “will make all the necessary efforts” to reach a “fair” agreement and avoid the announced strike.
When the talks began, the employers offered a salary increase of 8.5% over three years, a figure that rose to 9.5% and finally stood at 11%.
The union CCOO maintains that it will not sign below 15%. “We are separated by a very large distance between 11% and 16%,” admitted the FEHM, which expected a “more realistic” proposal from the unions and “substantive gestures” in absenteeism and consecutive weekly rest.
Another point without consensus is the reduction of the working week to 35 hours, proposed by UGT, which the employers reject “categorically”.
The UGT representatives left the meeting without signing the session minutes, while CCOO did sign the document and showed “willingness in favour of the agreement.”
With the tourist season already underway, both parties are now facing the pressure of deadlines: the FEHM insists on modernising the agreement without driving up costs, and the unions warn that they will not accept cuts in rights in exchange for a wage increase that they consider essential for the more than 180,000 workers in the sector in the Balearic Islands.
A series of protests have already taken place on the streets of Mallorca this month, with unions choosing the most popular tourist centres to ensure holidaymakers are aware of the conflict.