Voces del Prado

The 1987 strike

Manuel Montero Eugenia, Head of the Art Handling Staff, 1986-Up to date

The Museum became an autonomous institution. This meant that it separated from the Ministry of Culture and we had our own labour agreement. When the next agreement started to be negotiated I was already a guard and I was one of a group that wanted a reclassification of our level. Other groups had other claims.
When the different negotiations failed to reach an agreement there was a strike that started as a partial one then became general with work stoppages when the Museum was closed on consecutive days.
I remember that I was on the door with only a few people. At the beginning there were quite a few people but that number gradually went down. It’s true that we wondered if we were causing more problems than we were trying to resolve. I remember groups of Japanese visitors arriving and being disappointed when they couldn’t enter the Museum.
Obviously it was generally known that the Museum was closed but there were people who didn’t know or who still tried to get it and who came to the door. I remember it was a pretty tense experience. When it all ended I breathed a sigh of relief as although we didn’t achieve our aims I needed that situation to come to an end.