Businesses and associations have called for a Benidorm protest march next Tuesday, 29th September 2020.

Dubbed ERTE o MUERTE (furlough scheme or death) the car protest will drive through Benidorm to demand ‘urgent measures’ to save unemployed workers.

The Abreca/ Cobreca Benidorm bar and restaurant association said they are protesting for an extension of Spain’s furlough scheme (ERTE).

The ERTE was brought in after lockdown in March, and meant the government paid worker salaries in companies shutdown by restrictions.

The ERTE could either be 70% of a worker’s full salary if the worker was laid-off, or a 70% of half the worker’s salary while they worked half-days.

Businesses and the self-employed still need to pay social security contributions, however.

The scheme was designed so businesses didn’t fire staff en masse – but it will end 30th September, a month in which Benidorm lost 73.5% of hotel stays and is no where near ready to employ laid-off staff again.

A number of high-profile names have already joined the protest, including leading hotel association HOSBEC and Benidorm Palace.

“Benidorm, and all of Spain, needs strong support to its hospitality industry. Which is why, today, the most urgent measures we need are the extension of the ERTE for businesses and the self-employed that directly or indirectly rely on tourism,” Cobreca/ Abreca said in a statement.

They asked participants to gather with their cars at the Aqualandia carpark at 10:30am, before driving with the Benidorm protest cavalcade through to Terra Mítica. (See below.)

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