Wasteland: Barcelona airport covered in trash after cleaners go on strike (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

3 Dec, 2016 16:24

An airport in Barcelona, Spain has been transformed into a massive dump, with litter piling up throughout the facility since cleaners went on a five-day strike over a potential wage reduction.

The strike at Barcelona’s El Prat airport began on Monday, and the international airport is now covered in squalor, with rubbish overflowing the trash bins and covering the floors, according to La Sexta.

El Prat is Catalonia’s main airport. It handled 39.7 million passengers in 2015.

Shocked passengers have shared images of the filthy airport on social media.

There have also been reports of toilets becoming blocked.

Employees of Valoriza service company have gone on strike because they believe cost cutting measures taken by airport management Aena will result in their wages being cut.

The company claims that it is only negotiating schedules to provide better service to the airport.

Cleaning at the airport has now resumed, but the unions say they their members will walk off the job again on December 22 and 23 if an agreement is not reached.

Similar chaos was experienced at the airport in May of 2012, when cleaners went on a two-day strike and threw piles of paper around the airport grounds. On that occasion, workers were protesting €1.3 million in budget cuts announced by Aena.