From Solidaridad Obrera (AIT/IWA), newspaper of the CNT
"This is for Mercadona" they told J.C. member of CNT and of the strike committee of Mercadona (Spanish supermarket which is embroiled in an industrial relations dispute) when five individuals came up to him in the street at night, while they beat and kicked him, until he was lying in a puddle of blood, until he lost conscience. He was carried by an ambulance to the Red Cross where he recieved treatment for concusion, and cranial trauma. He had stiches in his face and was treated for various wounds in different parts of his body.
At midnight, thursday 28th of september, J.C. left the pub "Latino Emocion" in the street Severo Ochoa in Hospitalet de Llobregat near his flat, when five individuals came up to him asking "You are the striker from Mercadona?", and after that they beat him. In spite of the heavy loss of blood, the worker is out of risk at home and he denounced the attack.
J.C. is affiliated to the CNT, works in the logistic centre of Mercadona in Saint Sadurni D'Anoia and he followed the undefined strike since 23th of March 2006 as member of the strike comittee. J.C. didn't know the attackers nor he can't give a complete description of them, but he affirms they waited for him, acted organised, they told him "This is for Mercadona" while they beatened him and appearently two were spanish and the other three were from the Dominican Republic.
Since the 18th of Septembre, the CNT changed the strategy and converted the temporally indefined strike in a defined one from 10pm on every thursday to 10pm on every friday, and apart from this recent direct aggression, two members of the strike comittee were fired for disciplinary reasons, which shows clearly the repression against the CNT labour union. Every week new workers are joining the strike in spite of company's politics of "touching" the strikers and other sympathyzing workers offering them high amounts of money for dismissals or they sustitute them with workers from other logistic centres which they pay him high wages.
The saturday afterwards on the 30th of september there was a demonstration in Barcelona leaving at 6pm from Plaza de Universidad with high participation denouncing publicly the repression sufferd by the strikers.
CNT-AIT is going to intensify their actions against Mercadona in all of the spanish state, there will be a new international solidarity calling and announces that the strike will not end until the workers will achieve their aims: readmission of the fired workers, stop of the labor harassments, respect of the security and sanitary norms, recognition of the union section of CNT and some minor improvementes such as paid lunch breaks.
Newspaper "Solidaridad Obrera"