Berkley Center

Coming to Madrid, I knew that Spain was one of the countries hardest hit by the euro zone crisis, but was still surprised to find such widespread resistance to the new government’s austerity measures, especially after the Spaniards elected the conservative party (Partido Popular) in 2011 in hopes of a recovery. On March 29, workers all over Spain carried out the first general strike in 18 months in opposition to the new labor reform, which they consider a regression in labor law and a serious attack on workers’ rights.

The protests began early in the morning in Madrid, Barcelona, and other major cities. Protesters gathered with pickets and banners, blocking main avenues, littering the streets, torching dumpsters, intimidating employees, shattering glass storefronts, paralyzing shopping centers, and forcing police to release rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the crowds In total, over 150,000 people in Madrid and over 250,000 in Barcelona stormed the streets, but overall serious violence was sparse and minimal.

There were fewer disturbances in Madrid, where most businesses remained opened, and union leaders spoke in front of thousands of demonstrators at the end of the day, denouncing the new law, and declaring that citizens will continue to march if the government does not repeal some of the law’s provisions. In the weeks preceding the strike, I had seen posters, signs, and flyers were all over the city, and students at my university had rallied behind the cause in solidarity, going from door to door on campus and interrupting classes to call on their peers to join the movement. On the day of the strike, hundreds of students marched on campus grounds.

Although labor unions declared the strike an unquestionable success, the minister of interior made several TV appearances throughout the day, reaffirming that things were running smoothly throughout the country, and undermining the impact of the strike on the civil order and business activities, despite the skirmishes with police and the serious disturbances in public transportation. It’s without doubt that the Spanish government wanted to reduce the media coverage of the events, and the general attention given to the poor state of the Spanish economy within the European Union.

Over this past month, I have been asking myself why hundreds of thousands of people reject the labor reforms so vehemently. After doing some research, I found that mainly, the law provides employers with greater flexibility in firing employees and changing their salaries and schedules, that it lowers compensations for dismissed employees (In Spain, when firing for non-disciplinary reasons, employers must compensate with a sum equivalent to a set number of days per year worked), it reduces the grounds from which employee can sue for unjust dismissal, it extends the maximum trial period for new employees, and lastly, it establishes the legality of mass dismissals in public companies and administrations.

A little over a month later, university students protested the new public education reforms by calling for a strike on May 11. In an effort to reduce spending deficits at the national and state level, the Spanish government increased tuition fees for all university students by more than 50 percent and instituted financial penalties for failing students, requiring them to pass all of their classes to maintain their eligibility (if failing to do so, they could have to assume full responsibility for the costs of attendance). Weeks before the strike, students put up signs and posters all over campus grounds, sprayed new graffiti on the walls, and did more door-to-door awareness campaigns on campus. In that same time period, another, more general movement began in Madrid’s most central plaza, made of up of labor unions and anyone else dissatisfied with the current economic situation; the indginados peacefully marched, sang, and shouted slogans for a week.

Less than two weeks later, on May 22, university faculty went on strike because the new education reform also proposes to increase the minimum hours of lecture required of them per week. Some professors participating in the American academic curriculum at my university felt entitled to strike, despite the fact that by teaching courses especially designed for visiting students, they had made some kind of commitment to forego their right to strike.

The Reunidas programs was partly established to avoid the disruptions that occur so often in the Spanish public university system, in order to provide American students with some stability in their studies, and all Georgetown students take one of these classes. The day before the strike, my Reunidas professor told us that we were not to come to school the next day, and that we would make up for the lost lesson the following day (at the expense of other classes we regularly meet for at that time). Later that same day, we were to find out that the Reunidas board had not cancelled classes but that a number of professors had simply made the decision to participate in the strike, and ultimately we had class as scheduled. Against my better judgment, I decided to attend my next class in a different faculty that day, and I arrived to find the campus deserted and the classroom locked.

For a country blighted by the highest unemployment rate in Europe, too many among the Spanish youth and the working class feel entitled to unaffordable and counterproductive protections from the government, and lack the sense of competition needed for any economy to thrive. I understand the general disillusionment, but requiring professors at public universities to commit a minimum number of hours to giving class does not seem an excessive demand; giving employers some liberty to fire, to modify contracts, and to decrease wages without negotiating with labor unions seems reasonable enough.

Reducing the compensations owed when firing employees seems a right step in the direction of creating more incentives to hire. Surely such a high unemployment rate has something to do with all of the obligations that come with hiring a new employees; I now understand why one of my professors often joked about the irony of Spanish labor law, in making the bonds between an employer and an employee stronger than the ones between a man and a wife.

While it has been a great pleasure to study in Madrid, I find myself missing the determination, the drive, and the competition that defines American college education, especially at our very own Georgetown. Many Spanish students jump at any opportunity to denounce the system, all the while neglecting their studies, attending one of every two of their classes, chattering incessantly during their classes, not turning in assignments, behaving with complete impertinence, and smoking in academic buildings. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that students be required to perform well academically in order to benefit from financial aid, especially when under the new law, Spain still has one of the lowest costs of attendance for university, with the government assuming between 75 percent and 85 perecent of the costs of attendance for students in good standing. Although I am dreading my return to the hectic life of a Hoya, I am to be once again in an environment where students and faculty alike place an extremely high value on hard work.