The lifeguards are standing up. It is midsummer, and while thousands of people fill the beaches of Barcelona, the watchtowers are empty. The reason, the indefinite strike that the lifeguards of the city have started to denounce a situation that, according to them, has long since hit rock bottom: structural precariousness, institutional neglect and a lack of regulation that puts human lives at risk.
The protest comes at a particularly critical time. This summer, drownings have skyrocketed on the Catalan coast. Since June 15 alone, eight people have already died at sea. The figure is alarming and hides a reality as obvious as invisible: safety on the beaches is taken with tweezers. And those who should guarantee it – the lifeguards – have been working for years in conditions that border on the surreal.
Why the lifeguards are protesting
The lifeguards denounce their precariousness The personnel in charge of taking care of our beaches point out that they have been paid the same for ten years and work with low minimum staff, temporary contracts and exhausting shifts. All this, while they try to prevent tragedies, attend emergencies and keep calm on beaches full to the brim.
The nearly 100 lifeguards who cover the beaches of Barcelona currently depend on a concessionary company, and what they are demanding is simple: their own labor agreement, decent conditions and compliance with the agreements that were already signed but never applied. After several unsuccessful meetings with the company and the City Council, a strike was the only way left.
But beyond the labor conflict, the protest also puts the focus on something deeper: the total lack of regulations governing maritime rescue in Catalonia. As of today, there is no legal framework that unifies criteria, protocols or signals in the different municipalities. On some beaches there is surveillance, on others there is not. In some, the lifeguard wears a red uniform; in others, yellow. Flags do not always mean the same thing.
Today, with the strike underway, many watchtowers are empty. Some beaches, especially in Barceloneta, operate with minimum services. Bathers, bewildered, oscillate between anger and empathy. Because although the strike makes people uncomfortable, it also makes clear something that is sometimes forgotten: the invisible work of the lifeguards is essential until it is missing. And then it’s too late.