CCOO is one of the strongest workers unions in Spain. They gather more than 1 million active members in the country. this organization gathers foundations, research, work and educational programs and stands for obtaining and keeping good work conditions and rights. It is highly influential in the country to the point to make the government change and rethink national policies.
CCOO needed to enter a new approach to the equality concept trying to generate interest in topics as complex as discrimination at the workplace, equal opportunities at work and prevention of origin, race and gender discrimination and homophobia. All these topics being quite new to these type of organizations worldwide.
The fight for rights at work, seemed to have an image based on the old syndicate figure: a fat male construction worker with a protest sign who drinks beer has little education, a housewife and a low salary. But things have changed a lot in the last 50 years and workers unions and syndicates currently have an amazing diversity of members and offer an incredible range of services and programs, being Equality one of them.
To address this, CCOO contacted us looking for an event to commemorate the World Day Against Homophobia at their headquarters in Barcelona. They wanted us to create something to start talking about gender discrimination at the workplace and introduce the gender equality topic to their members. Since we considered a one day event may be forgotten easily and may not give many people the opportunity to talk about these new interests, we proposed two weeks of activities around gender, work and equality and focused on social and educational activities that may provide both members and visitors to the headquarters with a new and refreshing look about CCOO and the concept of Equality.
Under the slogan Nothing is Normal Nothing is weird (Nada es Extraño, Nada es Normal) we created a new local version of the Amor Universal Love Exhibition that incorporated a historical timeline about relevant people, achievements, history gossip and current news on gender equity, an exhibition of local lgbt graphic novel artists, a permanent book-reading table with magazines and books from different organizations working on equity and a workshop about discrimination at the workplace. A very positive impact was created both for members and visitors, a new way of generating content inside this organization was achieved and new possibilities of work for this organization have come along with the event.
The opening cocktail for the program was crowded with people interested in this new approach to rights, a more open, more contemporary image of the a workers union, linked to what workers and equality are today.
