At the invitation of ELA, a strike is held on Monday for the workers of the large textile chains of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. Affects many shops: Zara, Pull and Bear, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius, Oysho, Uterqüe and Lefties, among others.

ELA confirmed by note on Monday at noon that the strike took place mainly in the shops of Álava and closed the following major stores: Oysho, Bershka, Zara Home, Intimissimi, Woman Secret, Mayoral, Tezenis, Cortf, Spf and Pepe Jeans, among others. Pepe Jeans, H&M, Masimo Dutti and Woman Secret de Parfois, Tramas, Mayoral, Txingudi and Garbera have also been closed in Gipuzkoa. In Bizkaia, Decimas, Ikks, Álvaro Moreno and Oysho, among others, have closed and joined the strike called by ELA.

Negotiations began in Madrid on 17 July on the first agreement by the Spanish State of the major textile and footwear trade chains, and ELA has denounced that, in order to establish working conditions, the conditions of workers in Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Navarra will worsen: “Provincial agreements have much more favourable working conditions, with shorter working hours and higher wages,” the union said. The union exemplifies a right at risk of extinction: “Closures and breaks of weekends and holidays are at stake, and in the case of the workers of Bizkaia the right to rest on Saturdays in the summer afternoon.” ELA accuses the large textile chains of “trying to make working and wage conditions worse after the sector’s mobilisations.”

Part of the collective bargaining is the textile company ARTE – Inditex, Mango, Prima, H&M, Kiabi, among others – and the unions ELA, LAB, CCOO, UGT, Fetico and CIG.

On 17 July, coinciding with the strike, the ELA union meets in Madrid, together with the Galician union CIG and the Aragonese OSTA, before the negotiating meeting. ELA says that the companies that are part of the employers want to “violate” the right to collective bargaining, “shielded by the employers and the unions through the interprofessional agreement”, and criticizes that in Hego Euskal Herria they will not respect the right to decide.