Prison sentence for 18 union members found guilty of lock-in

Download article in original language : ES9905227NES.DOC

In Spain, 18 workers employed by the city council of Valladolid were sentenced to a weekend in prison in May 1999 for locking themselves into council premises during an industrial dispute. Trade unions have expressed outrage at what they see as an attack on the legitimate exercise of labour rights.

In December 1996, more than 200 municipal workers locked themselves into the premises of the city council of Valladolid in an attempt to force it to return to the negotiating table and award pay bonuses to police officers and firefighters for difficult and arduous working conditions. The mayor of the town, Javier León de la Riva, a member of the People's Party and its senior representative in Valladolid, reported 22 workers for "entering" the premises and thereby treated the "lock-in" as a penal offence. In the trial that was held in March 1998, the mayor withdrew the accusation against four workers, and in view of the facts the magistrate acquitted the remaining 18. The Public Prosecutor in the provincial court of Valladolid appealed against this ruling, whereupon eight months later a new sentence was issued, condemning the 18 workers (nine members of UGT and nine of CC.OO), to a weekend in prison (14 and 15 May 1999) or a fine of ESP 30,000.

The members of UGT opted to pay the fine, but the CC.OO members decided to serve the prison sentence to publicise a situation that they believe may set a precedent against the exercise of labour rights. The CC.OO organisation at national, regional and sectoral levels has condemned the attitude of the mayor and the court, maintaining that both the accusation and the sentence are unacceptable because the workers were carrying out an act of protest in support of their labour rights. The union confederation states that the sentence sets "a dangerous precedent for carrying out protest action in the framework of the use of trade union freedom". It also decries the allegedly selective nature of the accusation by the mayor who, it is claimed, selected 22 out of the 200 workers involved mainly on the basis of their trade union activity: all those accused were members of CCOO or UGT. CC.OO also claims that after 20 years of democracy, "authoritarian" actions are still being carried out that bring to mind the repression of the labour movement under the Franco régime.

CC.OO's central regional organisation in Castile and León and its regional Federation of Teaching, Health, Transport and Public Administration (Federación de Enseñanza, Sanidad, Transportes y Administración Pública) organised a series of rallies in May to express their support and solidarity for the trade unionists and their condemnation of the mayor and the court. These protests received widespread support from the public. The rally on the day of imprisonment (14 May) was attended by over 3,000 people in addition to union representatives from all over Spain.

A lock-in (encierro) by workers at their place of work is seen as a legitimate form of industrial action supported by current regulations. There was therefore widespread disappointment in many quarters that a senior representative of a democratic city council should report workers for an industrial protest and that a democratic court should rule against them. Some commentators claim that these actions are more representative of a fascist régime than of bodies that form part of a democratic constitutional state.