An inconvenient game of "chicken" is brewing amidst the metro lines and bus routes of Barcelona. Who will flinch first? And will there be an app to follow the drama on?
The 2012 Mobile World Congress is set to descend upon Barcelona the weekend of 27th February. Some 60,000 attendees will flood the Fira - Montjuic area of the city, eager to test out the newest trinkets and gadgets on display from the giants of the mobile technology world. New smartphones from the likes of HTC, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson will be unveiled. A potentially company saving, game changing operating system from RIM will be previewed as Blackberry attempts to stave off irrelevancy in the face of the Android and the iPhone. Sleek new tablets will be plentiful. Except for the iPad.
Apple is staying at home this year.
The keynote speakers for the conference include major power brokers from across the digital playing field. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, and Facebook CTO Brett Taylor plan to address the corporate hordes in attendance, and those are only the companies with the most "cool" factor. The list of CEO's, CFO's, Presidents, and Chairmen speaking is long, and relatively unattractive. I can't confidently say why the CEO of Citigroup is coming to address the crowd, but I can confidently say that his mere presence may cause many banks in Barcelona to declare insolvency and demand a bailout to be forked over by the taxpayer. To my local friends, I suggest emptying your accounts and hiding the money in your mattress until he leaves town.
The conference has called Barcelona home for a few years now, and on 22nd July 2011 confirmed it would remain in the city through 2018. The event is a grand feather in the cap of the local government. It ushers in wealthy big wigs willing to spend lavishly on hotels, high class restaurants, and the finest cava they can find. I am mildly curious to find out if the working girls in Raval see a spike in revenues over the weekend, but getting official numbers from them might prove difficult. The conference directly employs roughly 1,500 people for each day that it runs. Millions in revenue is expected to flow into the city as the rich and innovative discuss new apps and the future of various technologies.
This year, though, attendees may find themselves walking a bit more than usual. Bring good trainers.
The CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) anarcho-syndicalist trade union and employees for the TMB (Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona) have voted in favour of striking during the congress, as a result of TMB management attempting to deny them wage increases agreed to by both parties in their last collective agreement. The bold decision to effectively bring public transit to a grinding halt during such an important event for the city has set off a fierce panic among all affected parties. The MWC organisers are scrambling to find alternate methods for transporting attendees about, the city's hoteliers are in a rage over the possibility of lost revenue from the union's proposed action, and city mayor Xavier Trias has called on the workers to "apply common sense" and hold their strike action on a more convenient date so as not to tarnish the city's image.
In other words, do as we say, not as we do. Apparently the bosses don't enjoy the taste of their own medicine.
There's no denying it's an aggressive move by the union and the transit employees represented within. They are pushing back at TMB management and the municipal government by threatening a hugely profitable event for the city, essentially playing the one trump card they have.
Opinion on the strike is sharply divided amongst the public as well. Many support the workers and are quick to point out that they are asking for only what was promised to them. On the other side of the divide, many are questioning how they will get to their own jobs without access to public transit. Those in direct opposition to the strike, management and the city, are stoking the fires; playing worker against worker, accusing the transit employees of holding the city to ransom, in an attempt to divide and conquer. TMB Management contends they cannot afford to give what has been rightly earned. The company line is an echo of similar austerity measures stifling the poor working classes, and the squeezed middle classes, throughout the rest of Spain. We have made mistakes, you must pay for them.
Workers have started fighting back, and this conference represents an ideal opportunity to show the power they hold as the engine in the societal machine that makes a city run. Those in control should hardly be surprised. You can only beat someone down for so long, before they come back at you in a similarly brutal fashion.
While the order of the day in Spain continues to be great sacrifice by the masses in order to right the wrongs brought about by the controlling elite, expect the people to answer hard line tactics in kind. Expect a bite increasingly more ferocious than the bark.
For the CEO's, presidents, and chairmen still anxious to make the trip, I offer words of calm. I walk everywhere here in Barcelona, it's a fantastic city to experience on foot. However, if you powerful heads of the techno-empires aren't so keen on that idea, might I suggest picking up a Bicing card for the weekend?
