On the beach red and yellow flags are raised, and the bathers, attentive, pay attention to the megaphones to know the reasons. Over there a voice of alert asks, angry, attention, but does not speak of jellyfish or the state of the sea, but of the reasons of the lifeguards of Barcelona for a strike that began last Friday and that, for the moment, does not look like it will be solved.
For this reason, this week the beaches of Barcelona dawn with red flags waving all along the coast and the watchtowers symbolically closed. It is the most visible image so far of the indefinite strike of the lifeguards, who have been protesting for five days to demand better work and demand that the City Council sits down to negotiate with them.
Despite the warning and the symbolic closure, many bathers have ignored the danger signal and continue to enter the sea.
They denounce lack of dialogue
The lifeguards denounce that the City Council has not complied with the agreements reached in previous years, and criticize, as Betevé explains, that, to date, there has not yet been a formal meeting between the two parties. From the consistory, on the other hand, they assure that this Tuesday there was a meeting scheduled, but that the union representatives did not show up, something that the workers flatly deny.
Meanwhile, the beaches remain without active surveillance and the risks increase with the summer heat and the overcrowding of the coast. If these days the beaches had yellow flag, now they already have the red flag and a few lifeguards doing minimum services from the surveillance centers, with the towers closed.