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Fortunately (or unfortunately), my involvement on the Workers’ Committee took place during the worst period for the staff at the Museo del Prado. It was when the one and only strike that the Museo del Prado has ever known took place, which enabled us to achieve an Agreement that was a little more accessible. It improved workers’ conditions quite considerably, and this is the Agreement we still live off today.
The strike was about raising wages. Our wages were only half those that were paid in the street and the staff were fed up with having to keep down several jobs at the same time. Furthermore, the Government ended up banning multiple employment anyway, so you had to make ends meet any way you could, which is how the strike came about. And in the beginning, before we did the strike, we were locked in the Museo del Prado with the Workers’ Committee to prevent the employees from attending the strike. Our claim was against the Government and against the State, but not against the institution. At all times we made sure that everything we did would take place outside the building. Except for the lock-ins, as I’ve said, which took place in the Museum’s cafeteria and in the Pavilion, in which respect we weren’t even in the Museo del Prado enclosure. We all experienced the same, which was that when you told people that you worked at an institution such as the Prado, they thought you had the best job in the world. But it was also the worst paid.
So that was our demand, that we should receive a dignified wage, one that was in accordance with the place where we were working. Our wages weren’t dignified, since you could earn more almost anywhere else compared to what we earned here. So our demand was that the staff should be properly paid so that, being well paid, we would make up a staff that sought to look after the works and the building better, especially bearing in mind the place whether the staff was working. And our battles were extremely drawn out. We took the Administration and Offices Department to court in the first trial and we won against the Government, with Antonio Muñoz as one of the leaders of that battle. We won because we were right in terms of our demands.
He began working at the Museum as an elevator operator, and he has been an electrician there since 1988.
Interview recorded on November 28, 2017
