The film director Ken Loach supports the striking care home workers in Guipuzcoa

Oct 11, 2019
The film director Ken Loach approached the ‘Zaintzaldia’ space that the care workers from care homes and day centres in Guipuzcoa has set up in San Sebastian to show them his support. These workers are on strike, demanding a collective bargaining agreement that brings an end to their job insecurity and the wage gap. He also expressed his solidarity with them in his award acceptance speech.

A year has now passed since the workers from the care homes of Guipuzcoa started their mobilisations and in the near future they will reach the figure of 100 days on strike. These workers decided to demand their rights by way of the ‘Zaintzaldia’, an alternative festival to the San Sebastian International Film Festival that is being held in the Basque city of San Sebastian.

The care home workers are on strike to demand improvements in their working conditions and to manage to bring an end to the wage gap that they suffer from with respect to other “masculinised” sectors. Their demands also include an improvement in the ratios (that is to say, how many staff and how much time is devoted to each task in the work centres) as the very small ratios used at present prevent the workers from offering a quality service to the people they care for.

The British film director, Ken Loach approached the striking workers, he talked to them, taking an interest in their demands, expressing his solidarity with them and he even put on a purple t-shirt, a symbol of the strikers’ demands. The film director did not forget them or the work by ELA in his award acceptance speech and the value of their fight for some decent working conditions.