CCOO, UGT, their self-employed associations and the neighborhood federation will demonstrate on Wednesday at six in the afternoon in Plaza Urquinaona in Barcelona
austerity vs. social protection. This has been the dichotomy in which they have installed their message CCOO, UGT, its self-employed associations and the neighborhood federation, among other organizations, to call a demonstration this Wednesday against price escalation. The centrals are organizing protests in the main cities of the country and in Catalonia they have wanted to cover them with transversality and have joined the call to various related entities. The march will be at six in the afternoon, it will begin in the square Urquinaone of Barcelona and will end in the square Saint James. There the protesters will demand that the Government deploy measures to offload the costs of the war and the energy crisis from the shoulders of the workers. Among others, they demand that you update the Sufficiency Income Indicator (IRSC), which has been frozen for 12 years and serves to set the amount of subsidies such as the Citizenship Guaranteed Income (RGC).
“Energy companies are lining up at the expense of the purchasing power of citizens”, denounced the general secretary of the CCOO of Catalonia, Xavier Pacheco. “This is not about lowering the heating, it is about controlling prices”, pointed out his UGT counterpart, Camil Ross. The centrals with majority representation seek to pressure the Government and the rest of the administrations so that they do not manage the aftermath of the war with generalized tax cuts that in the medium term can be consolidated and reduce the State’s capacity for action, through public investment, benefits, subsidies or extraordinary aid. “Put your batteries, stop this, otherwise the conditions of the neighborhoods will deteriorate”, declared the president of Confavc, Jordi Giro.
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However, entities within that perimeter to which they have wanted to extend their claims do explicitly advocate tax cuts, although on specific and temporary products. Mainly from those sectors most directly affected, such as carriers. “The situation is unsustainable, there are 140,000 self-employed in Catalonia who depend on transport to work but the cost of fuel cannot be deducted,” said the president of UGT-CTAC, Sandra Zapatero. From the organizations of self-employed workers they advocate for fuel rebates to prevent carriers from operating below cost. “We are in a pressure cooker and this is going to explode. We have a survival problem, they have to find a solution now”, declared the coordinator of Uatae in Catalonia and a reference for Elite Taxi, Titus Alvarez.
The labor conflict, which is already being noticed in strikes such as the one called by a minority of self-employed and small businessmen in the transport sector, threatens to escalate. And the social agents, with demonstrations like the one on Wednesday, aspire to condition the response that the Government is preparing to cushion the impact of the rise in energy and the lack of raw materials in certain sectors.