Barcelona Airport Gets Trashed

Photographers capture images of garbage build-up after five-day strike.

Travelers passing through Barcelona El Prat Airport (BCN) were forced to navigate an unusual obstacle during the five-day span ending Dec. 2: mounds of garbage. RT reports the travelers contended with the trash build-up after janitorial staff walked off the job during a strike.

The unionized janitors went on strike as a public grievance against the airport, which recently brought in another operations contractor on a lower cost contract. The workers claim their work schedules and holidays have been reduced as a result of the new working agreement.

As a result, trash services were stalled, causing garbage to accumulate throughout the airport. Flyers took to social media to share pictures of trash overflowing from cans, as well as debris covering the floors at the airport. In addition, some flyers reported backups in some of the toilets as a result of the lack of service.

In 2015, BCN serviced over 39 million passengers. Correlating from that calculation, as many as 500,000 passengers may have been affected by the overflowing trash at the airport.

Trash service at the airport has since resumed, but workers say another work stoppage could be on the horizon if their demands are not met. Another potential strike is planned for Dec. 22 and 23 if a new agreement with the employer and the airport is not reached. The company employing the workers has not yet provided a comment about the situation.

The event is the second garbage-related strike to affect the airport in the last four years. In May 2012, workers purposefully threw garbage around the airport in protest of proposed budget cuts during a two-day strike.