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Strike threat at Barça TV over working conditions

BarcelonaThe working conditions of the 90 employees of Barça TV are increasingly complicated and they have chosen to say enough. “The level of stress and discomfort is very important”, assures ARA Ernest Méndez, the president of the company committee. So much so that during the last year “10 people have left because of this situation and a few more are on the exit ramp”. One of the main reasons that have led to this point is that in 2015, when Telefónica was left with the management of the television production of the Barcelona club, for which it receives a little less than 10 million euros per year, it decided to freeze salaries and eliminate the annual increase in the CPI. In addition, Méndez reports that “before, if you had to work on a normal holiday, you were paid as an extra and not now”, and that “for the Christmas specials lately” they have been paid “less than half than before” and Telefónica does not considers that “Sant Esteve and Reis are Christmas holidays”. Thus, he says that they have gone “from receiving a low salary to a precarious salary”. In some cases, the payroll does not reach 1,000 euros.

One of the ways that Barça TV workers previously had to increase their base salaries was to work overtime compared to the 35 weekly hours agreed upon. “There are employees, like some of those who have done the summer tour of the first men’s soccer team in the United States, who have come to accumulate almost 500 overtime hours. But they never end up paying you. What they do is compensate them by giving you a break, as is happening now during the World Cup”, explains the president of the works committee. In fact, he explains that Telefónica prefers “to hire external people only for one day than to allow Barça TV workers who would like to do overtime to increase their salary” to work overtime.

In addition to not being paid overtime accrued when they are traveling for work, these employees are also not paid more than a normal working day for having to sleep away from home: there is no compensation for night hours worked, they are not respected the breaks between days and Méndez considers that “the diets are out of date with respect to the current reality”. He even explains that “many times workers have had to advance money to go to work outside the home and, in some cases, it has taken months to get it back”. As if all this were not enough, the material they have to work with has not been renewed during the seven years that Telefónica has been managing Barça TV.

An internal survey shows the discontent of the workforce

Due to this situation, the works committee of Barcelona television conducted a survey among the employees to find out their opinion on some issues. 94% answered that they consider that their salary is not adequate and 92%, that they do not feel well valued by Telefónica. The ARA has asked the Spanish multinational for its version of the Barça TV situation and whether they plan to improve the working conditions of the workers, but has not received an answer.

After the works committee of Barça TV reported to the Labor Court of Catalonia (TLC) the difficulty in meeting with Telefónica representatives, they were initially offered a 1% salary increase only for this 2022 and without counting the increase in the CPI. The Blaugrana workers received the offer with indignation and Telefónica’s response was a counteroffer of 3.5%. “We will not sign it. What we are demanding in the negotiations is an increase of 18.5%, which is the result of the sum of the increase in the CPI that Telefónica has not taken into account since it has been with us minus the 2.3% that we it was raised randomly and that it does not belong to the basic salary”, informs Méndez. Thus, the workers have already agreed on a series of actions that will go from less to more. The last would be a strike in the medium term. This week they will hold an assembly in which the date of this possible strike will be decided, to which they wish not to have to attend.

A meeting with Laporta to try to defuse the situation

Another step they have taken recently has been to request a meeting with Barça, which was accepted. In fact, they were received by the president himself, Joan Laporta, accompanied by the director of human resources, Carles Cendrós; from the director of the club’s business committee, Jaume Feliu; from Barça TV’s external consultant, Toni Cruz, and from the club’s labor lawyers. “It was an important meeting. They were shocked by the situation we explained to them”, says Méndez. “I know that they have moved strings. They want a solution from Telefónica”, he adds.

The last contract for the management of Barça TV the club, already with Laporta as president, signed with Telefónica in December 2021 and ends on June 30, 2023. “We were told that the possibility is being studied to join us as Barça Studios staff, but they didn’t promise us anything. Our war is not against the club, we want to be the club”, says the president of the Barça TV works committee. In fact, 90% of Barça television workers state that they are not excited about a possible renewal with Telefónica beyond June 2023 and 94% consider that they should be employees of Barça Studios.

For their part, sources at the club explain to ARA that “Barça has already spoken with Telefónica, but they continue to mistreat the workers”, and that “in this conflict the club can only apply pressure”. In addition, they leave open “the possibility” that Barça TV will end up being part of Barça Studios.

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