Zara Employees Across Seven EU Nations Plan Black Friday Protests Demanding Profit-Sharing Restoration

Zara staff members are organizing coordinated demonstrations across seven European Union countries, strategically timed to coincide with the peak sales event of Black Friday, specifically November 28, 2025. The central demand driving these actions is the reinstatement of the profit-sharing scheme that was discontinued for employees by the parent company, Inditex, following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

This push for industrial action originates from the Inditex European Works Council, working in close concert with the Spanish trade union CCOO. Protests are slated to occur in major metropolitan areas across Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Portugal. The clear objective is to exert maximum leverage on Inditex management during the most financially lucrative period of the retail calendar. These planned demonstrations are expected to last approximately one hour and will be conducted outside of core working hours, ensuring that store operations remain open to serve customers.

Rosa Galán, a representative for CCOO within Inditex, highlighted the ethical dimension of the dispute. She firmly stated that a corporation realizing substantial profits, which are intrinsically linked to the efforts of its workforce, bears a responsibility to distribute those earnings equitably. Inditex’s financial performance for 2023 substantiates this claim, showing a significant upturn with net profits reaching 5.38 billion euros, alongside a notable increase in share value since the close of 2022. This robust financial health stands in stark contrast to the executive decision to scrap the profit participation program for frontline staff.

Historical precedent suggests that such unified action can yield tangible results. For instance, following protests by Spanish workers leading up to Black Friday in 2022, Inditex agreed three months later to implement a 20% average wage increase for store employees within Spain. Furthermore, the current situation in 2025 is exacerbated by Inditex rolling out its Long-Term Incentive Plan for the 2025–2029 period, which appears heavily weighted toward managerial tiers, thereby sharpening the disparity in reward structures.

The cross-border coordination among unions in these seven nations underscores the transnational nature of employment within the Inditex group and the workers' unified pursuit of a fair standard of compensation. Unions, including CCOO and UGT, are not only pressing for the return of the profit-sharing model but are also seeking supplementary improvements, such as enhanced seniority bonuses and better terms for part-time employees. In Spain alone, where Inditex employs 28,000 retail staff, nearly half of the workforce has affixed their signature to a petition demanding equitable profit distribution. The strategic timing of the protest on Black Friday clearly signals the workers' intent to directly link their demands to the peak financial results generated by their daily contributions to the retail network.