The feminist movement of the Basque Country and dozens of people from different sectors and agents have presented the popular agreement in Hernani. The agreement has been presented in defence of the collective right to surveillance and the members of the coordinator Denon Bizitzak Erdigunea have called for a Community public surveillance system. Moreover, they have read the current “unsustainable” surveillance regime. Members emphasize that the basis for building a “dignified life” is care. They also stressed that it is “necessary” to manage life, well-being and health: “It is essential for the sustainability of our bodies, communities and land.”

They want to bet on the collective right to care: “We want to help all people throughout their lives to offer and receive, with freedom and commitment, care.” On the other hand, they also intend to transform the current social organization of care tasks, facing precarious and collapsed situations. They also want to define a social system that puts life at the centre in the long term: “We want to overcome the capitalist, racist and heteropatriarchal system.”

The presentation notes that all surveillance services have been “systematically” privatized from Basque institutions: “They are made available to friendly companies at the expense of the well-being of caregivers and the working conditions of workers.” On the other hand, they denounce that these policies “put the center” of the heteropatriarchal family. “Care is given to women and often to racialized migrant women. In addition to a capitalist and heteropatriarchal system, it is racist.”

They recognize that the popular agreement is a “reflection of the process” that is being woven between the Feminist Movement of the Basque Country and different agents, coinciding with the General Feminist Strike. On 30 November, a strike was called to initiate a “process of centralization” of the lives of all.

In the short and long term they have defined their priorities, for example, in the short term they have defined the strengthening and development of the home help service, universal access to the right of registration and the inclusion of domestic staff in the general labour regime. In the long term, among others, priority has been given to ending the sexual and racist division of labour, to building new models of popular power and governance and to developing the Community public surveillance system.