37 days of strike. Ferrovial, a multinational subcontracted with the Michelin multinational. Migrant workers (Morocco, Mauritania, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Togo...), total precariousness. Against David Goliath in the Alavesa plain, in Araia, in particular. A trade union: ELA. 37 days of strike and a triumph (salary increases over EUR 3,600 in five years, conversion of all part-time full-time contracts, paying fourteen hours of free disposal, improvement of plus, start of 100% work absences...).

I don't know you, but I think this is a bypass. In a conflict of this kind, with those protagonists and in the conditions in which they were, a victory of this kind should spread at full speed in every corner of Euskal Herria, throughout the State and throughout the world, especially in the times of what is, of the poor workers, of fear. But no one knows anything about this conflict and this victory.

Surely because, with the agreement, the people and working groups who have led the conflict have tackled the following tasks, responding to their daily lives. Where is what is being done? I imagine that they are too busy and that they do not attach so much importance to this issue of communication ...

A mistake, yes. But I prefer this flaw to the contrary. I love those who do and those who do not say, those who say and do not. This does not mean that it is not essential to make known the struggles and victories, which has been achieved in Araia, because it can be replicated in any other workplace contaminated by precariousness.

This battle won by the workers of Ferrovial, with a large number of people being racialized among the workers, has reminded me of the struggle of the flat waiters of the hotels NH and Barceló-Nervión de Bilbao (47 days of strike and victory), of the Navarre de Pamplona (41 days of strike and victory), of the workers of the works of the port of Bilbao and of the Donostia Stadium. He also reminded me of the work done by the representatives of ELA in Inditex to denounce the situation of workers in the same chain in Myanmar.

And I ask myself: How is decolonial unionism built? With theory and debate? yes. With ideology and training? also. With discourses and alliances? But it's not enough.

The most important thing to build decolonial syndicalism is praxis. Decolonial syndicalism is built with a decolonial syndicalism: affiliation, collective construction, organization, struggle, strikes in the most precarious, rationalized workplaces. Decolonial syndicalism is built in the same way as feminist syndicalism is built: from practice.

The road is made by walking, although we never reach a goal (the most important is the process). The case of the unionization of the feminized sectors is best known, above all, for the strike in the residences of Bizkaia (378 days of strike and victory). But also because of the union successes achieved against the wage gap, in the cleaning of police stations and courts in Gipuzkoa (9-month strike and victory), in the cleaning of the City Hall of Elorrio (5-month strike and victory), in the cleaning of the City Hall of Zarautz (this time without strike, but thanks to a successful previous strike), and also for the victory of Lidl workers in the midst of a pandemic.

We also continue to make progress: since the fall three strikes of care in Hego Euskal Herria, the struggle in the residences of Gipuzkoa (there are already 247 days of strike), the strikes in the residences of Álava and Navarra, the strikes in the home help service...

Capitalism, patriarchy and racism are going through us deeply, it's going to be hard for us to get out of it altogether. Our trade unionism will always be short, we will make mistakes, it will remain mainly white and male; it will cost us to say it one day, "we already have the decolonial feminist syndicalism".

As Galeano said, utopia serves to move forward, although we escape when we think we have something in our hands. And we will advance step by step, from praxis, from struggle to struggle, from victory to victory, no matter how small they may be. This is how the class struggle progresses, giving prominence to women and people who are racialized. And good news: good practices and good results get polluted.

It's complicated, I know. The situation is difficult, so many of the needs of the workers who come from the impoverished countries to seek a better life, and so many entrepreneurs who want to enrich themselves by exploiting those needs! That's why it's so important to communicate every fight, every win. From humility, yes, from the smallness of what has been achieved, but let it be known, let it be seen. Make the light. There is a solution.

* Unai Oñederra is a member of the Manu Robles-Arangiz Foundation