MADRID, SPAIN. Trash collectors are on an open-ended strike in the Spanish capital, protesting against an ERE, or Expediente de Regulación de Empleo, which would layoff more than 1,000 workers. The municipality’s cleaning services currently employ around 6,000 people.
As a result, Madrid’s neighborhoods are brimming with cartons, sofas, cans, plastic bags and even huesos de jamón, the bones that go unused when preparing dishes with Iberian ham. “There are places you can’t even walk anymore because of the piles of trash,” reports El País. Madrid’s mayor Ana Botella, meanwhile, is being criticized for not taking action. She lives in Pozuelo, outside of Madrid.
Trash piles up at the Plaza de Manuel Becerra in Madrid | ROOSTERGNN