In Southern Spain, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, mayor of the small town of Marinaleda, is helping organize a growing protest movement against the austerity measures imposed by the Spanish government. Sánchez Gordillo and the landless peasants that follow him are at the forefront of demonstrations seeking a radical change in the country’s economic policies in response to the country’s worsening crisis.
TRNN Exclusive Interview with Spain’s Robin Hood Mayor
Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo has become the face of the growing protest movement in Spain. The mayor of a small town in Southern Spain called Marinaleda, he has become well-known for leading combative protests and sit-ins, including a protest in a supermarket in which food was taken and redistributed to the poor. But Sánchez Gordillo has backed up his critiques of capitalism with a viable alternative. In his town of Marinaleda, there is full employment, people rent homes for 15 Euros a month, and everybody who works in the agricultural cooperative that was formed, including the mayor, earns the same salary.
Tags: agrarian reform, Andalucía On Its Feet Mobilization, Andalusia, Andalusian Union of Workers, anti-capitalism, austerity, banking, Cadiz, day laborers, direct democracy, Europe, food sovereignty, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, landless, Marinaleda, Occupy movement, Puerto Real, social movements, Spain, supermarket occupation, unemployment
