Spain’s burnt out ’babysitter grandparents’ urged to strike -----西班牙呼籲累壞的「保母祖父母」罷工
A call has gone out for grandparents around Spain to down tools recently and go on strike - because they’re sick to the teeth of all that childcare.
For a country where half of all grandparents look after their grandchildren every day – one in eight for more than nine hours a day – the strike call threatens to disrupt the working lives of a significant proportion of the population and expose the extent to which this unpaid work is propping up the economy.
"We want grandparents to strike to prove they are a key part of the way this country functions," said Manuel Pastrana, leader of the UGT general workers’ union in the southern region of Andalucia. "Learn to say no" and "don’t feel guilty" are the slogans, aimed at so-called "babysitter grandparents".
The call is part of a wider attempt to bring the country to a halt with a general strike. But it has also struck at one of the key elements of Spanish society – where grandparents provide the childcare that working parents cannot give and the state does not offer.