Workers at Letracívica, a private printer and mailing contractor in Paterna outside Valencia, stopped work on 6 October, delaying 82,000 notices telling residents how to check their electoral-register details. The stoppage ended on Wednesday, but workers say they will renew it on 12 October unless talks produce a deal.
The firm has a €4.8 million (about $5.6 million) contract to send 640,000 notices across Valencia province before 19 October. The letters are not ballots or voter identity cards; they let residents check their registered address and correct errors. Officials say the delay will not affect anyone’s right to vote.
The worker who helped start it
Rojas, 58, is not a visiting union organiser but one of 14 people who founded the business in 2001 as a worker cooperative. She began operating a folding machine, then helped devise the production schedule that got its first large public mailing out on time. The cooperative was sold in 2018; Rojas stayed, and now checks finished batches.
“I know every sound this place makes when it is running properly,” she said outside the plant on Wednesday. “I never thought I would have to stand here to make them listen.” She joined the stoppage after managers rejected the union’s request for a 10% pay rise over two years and limits on split shifts.
The union says 178 of the plant’s 236 employees stopped work. Its representative, Paul De Oliveira, said the company’s offer of a 4% increase over two years would leave many workers behind rising housing and food costs. He said some employees had been given their weekly shifts with less than three days’ notice.
The letters still have a deadline
Letracívica says it has dispatched 558,000 notices and can finish the remaining batches by 16 October if staff return. Xavier Houle, the company’s operations director, said the proposed pay rise was “the most we can offer without putting the contract at risk”. He said managers had agreed to discuss shift scheduling but disputed the union’s count of striking workers.
Rojas’s history with the company gives the dispute an unusual edge: she helped create the operation that she is now trying to stop. She said most of the founding group cashed out when the cooperative was sold, and that she no longer owns shares. “We built it to be a decent place to work,” she said. “That part has gone missing.”
The Electoral Register Directorate, the public office overseeing the mailing, said the delayed letters would be sent by the revised deadline and residents could also check their details through municipal offices. It has not cancelled the contract. Union and company representatives are due to meet on Friday; Rojas says she will return to the line if the talks fail.
