The labor conflict initiated by the Bilbao Self-Defense Network with the company Espacio Open-Jardin Secreto continues. The network contacted the company on 10 September, after a person working in the company approached them. The former worker of the bar Jardin Secreto told them his case: while working, he performed the duties of the hospitality agreement and charged the salary corresponding to a minor agreement, after which he was dismissed on leave and communicated by the Social Security.

The employee and the network sent the head of the company a letter in which they collected their complaints. In order to respond to the complaints, a maximum deadline was set until 17 September and, when the day arrived, no one contacted them, so they decided to make the conflict public. On 17 September the protesters protested at the bar, with the presence of the clients in the establishment. They stated that the public character of the conflict would increase until a response was received from the company, and so came the call for protests on October 4, the day on which the new season of the Open Your Ganbara fair that is held on Sundays in the Open Space began.

Open Space Event Reading

At ARGIA we announced the conflict on the eve of the protest on October 4 and on September 5 the journalist received the message of Espacio Open. In it, the company manifested its desire to make its version known, since according to them the information that the worker and the network had made public “is not true”.

According to the company's letter, the former worker started working in Jardin Secreto in February, with a three-month temporary contract. In his words, this contract “was prolonged by the state of alarm, as a result of the pandemic” and ended on 18 July. In this sense, Espacio Open says that one cannot qualify as dismissal the former worker, since “one cannot dismiss anyone who has no contract in force”.

In its letter, the company refers to the complaints made by the former worker and the Workers' Self-Defense Network, for which they claim €432.73, and which now claim €108.24. “We paid the amount that legally corresponded to the worker through the liquidations, a total of €677.89. The settlement has been much more than was originally requested (…) There is no clear justification for why the first 432.73€ were requested and then another 108.24€, despite the fact that the payment of the settlement has exceeded the sum of the two amounts requested by the worker and the collective”.

Espacio Open considers that the situation denounced by the Network is "inflated" and has considered that the fact of not going to the Social Court is an indicator of this. “Dismissal on leave is illegal; if it were true, justice would punish us and give them reason,” he wrote, adding: “And giving up the mechanisms for defending the rights of workers with the ability to punish those who hire would never be a good strategy.”

Having said that, the company considers that “there are other causes that deserve this protest”.

Response from the Self-Defense Network

The Basque Network of Self-Defense Workers has published an explanatory note this Tuesday after Espacio Open transmitted to the media that reported its conflict of reading. They state that the need to write this note has been motivated by several reasons: on the one hand, because the company’s version questions its demands and has seen the need to clarify them; and on the other, because the company’s claims directly affect the person and the agent who was dismissed from Jardin Secreto.

For the first time, they have made it clear that the company is still not in contact with them to resolve the labour dispute.

The paper explains that it is true that the company paid the worker a certain amount of money at the end of the employment relationship, but they specify: “However, this amount corresponds to the Temporary Incapacity of the worker, a concept that we do not ask in our communication”. In view of this situation, the network has denounced that the company is trying to sell as compensation the amount corresponding to the standard wage of the worker. “That is, the fact that they have now paid off the debts they had to have paid at another time and form does not exempt from the workers’ dismissal compensation. Therefore, the debt is not paid,” they stressed.

Regarding the worker's contract, the network points out that the company uses a temporary contract and a probationary period in its defense to imply that the worker has not been dismissed because the contract is not in force. “This practice, very common among hospitality entrepreneurs, is absolutely condemnable,” they say. Through this practice, they have explained, employers use fake temporary employment contracts to comply with an employment relationship that should be indefinite, ensuring that, between the two contracts, the worker can be dismissed without any compensation. The Workers' Self-Defense Network makes this clear: that is to say goodbye.

In this regard, they have clarified that the amount they request "as compensation, responds to an improper dismissal". The reason for the request is also clarified: that the superiors have not notified the worker of the renewal of the contract or of the extension of the contract.

The network also referred to the reasons why it did not go to the social court. They have explained that the abuses that “constitute the usual practice of Espacio Open” and some practices that lie within the limits of legality are “difficult” to denounce in a judicial process, and that, therefore, they have nothing but the self-organization of the working class. “The bourgeois legal order does not define our demands, but the legitimacy given to us by the exploitation and the organized force that we have to carry out our demands,” they read. They say that the argument that the company has not come to court uses it with a clear intention: to justify the good practice of the company, taking advantage of the fact that the network has not taken the legal path.

They use the closing of the note to reach the main Espacio Open their willingness to speak "directly and privately".