A very good friend asked me a few days ago my personal opinion about the unions in this country and its behavior in the general strike on September 29. I said that the strike had no basis for his call and that the unions demonstrated once again I found apart from the real problems of the workers they supposedly represent.
However, what is the true image of the unions? Let's see:
a) Spain shows one of the union membership rate lowest in Europe: only 15% compared to rates close to 70% in countries like Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
b) The number of released labor is 57,000 people, ie people who spend hours of work to union representation of workers in their workplaces. The total cost of the union released to businesses is more than 1,600 million a year.
c) The financing does not come mainly from membership fees but via public financing: in 2010 the unions received directly from state coffers the amount of 15,798,500 euros. Add to that the funding they receive training under the Tripartite Foundation, whose numbers reach 172,667,675.5 amounts of euros. Needless to say, is known to all the activities of the Foundation and how effectively it works (sic). Another minor detail is that the money is received before the courses were funded, which has already caused a scandal like the one in the case FORCEM. To this we must clarify that all workers detract us a monthly amount 1.65% for training.
d) Most of the venues that inhabit the unions belong to the National Heritage and therefore do not pay any rent. Are more than 600,000 square feet and represent a cost around (below market) of 180 million euros to be saved.
However, if these figures were not outrageous enough, we must join the main feature of trade unions in Spain for me: total impunity. When calling a strike and go to her in full possession of his duties, act with arrogance known to be protected and shielded by the ineffectiveness of the law. As there is no right to strike, the constitution contains the same right for workers who decide not go there.
Well, these defenders of democracy fall on coercion and more sneaky and criminal acts that may know, under a total impunity to force everyone to drink the water. Anything goes. From sealed with glue doors, gates and shutters of shops, creating flaming barricades and debris to prevent entry or exit sites and industrial areas, blocking roads, cutting transportation and services minimum and of course, coercion and verbal and physical threats against those who fail to comply with its mandates.
These videos are an example of the democratic arts of information pickets:
