Squatting Farms and Raiding Supermarkets with Farm Workers in Andalucia

Faced with the harshest cuts to public services in the history of Spanish democracy, workers in Andalucia are going through an undeniably shitty time. Unemployment in the area is around 36% – much higher than the national average (about 26%) – while the labour reforms (ERE) that allow corporations to fire huge swathes of the workforce without severance pay only make things worse. It’s not all bad news though: Mirroring Andalucia’s descent into economic gloom has been the rise of collective initiatives such as the Corralas, and workers unions such as the Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores (Andalucian Workers Union).

Inspired by the communitarian village of Marinaleda, who’s revolutionarily bearded mayor is also the president of the union, the SAT  – and it’s sister organisation the Sindicato Obreros de Campo (Farm Workers Union) – have been expanding their operations across the regions over the last couple of years. Their actions include highly publicised ‘raids’ on supermarkets in places like Seville, Malaga and Cordoba.

While it might be good for generating headlines, a few packets of pasta and bottles of olive oil do not a revolution make. The SAT’s real work lies in their steady process of squatting farms; not just as a protest at the vast tracts of workable land that are lying unused while their owners soak up EU subsidies, but also to provide a living for the locally unemployed “jornaleros” (day labourers).

It was this part of the SAT’s activity that attracted the attention of photographer José Colón, who himself grew up in the type of small Andalucian town most affected by the crisis. In December 2012, he spent two weeks documenting the one of these projects, the Finca Somonte near Cordoba. Here are some of the pictures he took.

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The guy with the beard is Juan Manuel Sanchez-Gordillo, president of the SAT and mayor of the communitarian town of Marinaleda. Here he is leading some Somonte workers on a protest in favour of reclaiming lands for collective farming.

Graffiti in Somonte: “This land belongs to the people – Agrarian revolution”

Somonte workers attend one of the assemblies, where all decisions to do with the running of the farm are taken collectively. The mural reads: “People of Andalucia, don’t emigrate, fight. The land is yours.”

Guardia Civil pólice officers attempt to clear the occupied farmlands. SAT members usually return the next day to continue the occupation.