Sale posters inviting you to buy clothes in H&M stores were hidden under bars and shutters this Tuesday. The workers of the Swedish fashion chain, called on strike by the CC OO and UGT unions, managed to close most of the shops in Spain, in front of the astonished gaze of tourists and customers. Today was the first of the strike days that the workers have undertaken to protest against the “work overload” suffered by the sub-minimum workers, full of part-time workers and low wages which also depend on provincial agreements, very different each other other.
“Look, look, it’s all closed, Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Gijón… I have videos from everywhere,” said Mario González, from H&M’s CC OO trade union branch in Barcelona, showing a group WhatsApp on his cell phone that smoked. In Spain there are 125 company stores where around 4,000 people work, according to the union, and the level of monitoring has been “almost total”. González is the spokesman for the protest in the Catalan capital, which took place in front of the brand’s flagship store on Paseo de Gràcia. He explains that his situation, compared to other regions of Spain, is slightly better in terms of wages because the provincial textile agreement was renewed last year, while in other places it has been blocked for more than 10 years. But he points out that, beyond salaries, all shops suffer from the same thing: overwork. “The company doesn’t cover sick leave or sick leave, and that’s putting stress on the workforce, that we have to do our own work and those who aren’t there,” he says. Nor has the company done particularly well in recent times: in 2022, despite sales growing by 12%, the Swedish group’s profit fell by 67%, to 3,566 million crowns (318 million euros). in costs due to inflation.
This morning the workers were stopped from 11:00 to 13:00, and in the afternoon from 20:30 to 22:30, while two 24-hour strike days are scheduled for Thursday and Friday. The protests come after workers and the company failed to reach an agreement to call off the strike on Monday night when they met at the mediation table. “We hope that the company reflects on these protests,” says Ángeles Rodríguez, trade manager at CC OO.
The difficulties for H&M workers are not new. In 2021, the company filed a labor regulation file (ERE) to lay off more than 900 workers, a cut that after the negotiation was reduced to 400 affected. “Although later there were those who left with the same conditions as the ERE because they voluntarily requested it,” Rodríguez points out. Since then, the models have “been down”. “They are below the minimum, sick leave and holidays are not covered and this means a higher workload. It’s a whiting that bites its tail, because stress generates more victims,” explains the trade unionist.
After the Inditex strike, in which shop assistants such as Zara or Bershka obtained better wages and 1,000 euros more to combat the effects of inflation, H&M approved a compensation of 500 euros for all staff at the end of the year, and it was agreed to create a dialogue table to address the two hot spots: work overload and the need to establish stable responsibility bonuses for managers. Workers are calling for more staff to be hired to cover sick leave, extending part-time contracts to more hours or full-time, proposing a sales incentive scheme and demanding liability bonuses. But five months after the establishment of the table there have been no results, and everything has led to the strike in recent days.
The salaries are as disparate as the provincial settlements. “The agreement that applies is that of textiles or general trade, depending on the site, and the salaries range from the minimum professional salary to that of Barcelona, about 20,000 euros gross per year,” Rodríguez points out. The problem is that, since there are the majority of partial contracts, what the worker receives is much less. “It’s a very common thing in the trade, we always say that if there is someone full-time it is because he has won the lottery,” says the spokeswoman.
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