You don't have to be great analyst to see a repetition of what political parties, large Ibex companies and media outlets have already suffered in the campaign against the Catalan unions. The objective is quite simple: to tame the Catalan branches of the unions UGT and CC.OO. until they renounce having their own voices in the Catalan conflict. It matters little that neither of the two unions is pro-independence; what's important is to suffocate them until their opinions in Catalonia are irrelevant and the decision centres are 600km away in Madrid.
With the PP historically absent from the Catalan debate with its own voice, Cs deliberately opposed to any hint of Catalanism and PSC submissive to PSOE, Catalan politics has here also entered a new era. The same thing is happening with the large companies of the Ibex stock index and the traditional media, so far removed from their readers that sometimes you don't know where they've been edited.
The UGT and CC.OO. have decided to not continue on this path which would led them, most likely, to starvation, to the loss of their most experienced senior leaders and a relentless loss of members. Their secretaries general in Catalonia, Camil Ros and Javier Pacheco, already suffered an aggressive campaign over their participation some weeks ago in the large-scale demonstration calling for the release of the political prisoners and the return of the exiles. It wasn't an exclusively pro-independence demonstration and it was organised by a series of groups with varied ideologies, but that doesn't matter.
Your presence is enough for you to be marked out and thrown to the lions. Albert Rivera even wanted to announce that he was leaving UGT over their presence at the event. A curious thought process from Ciudadanos' leader, because one could think it mean that, if he hadn't left earlier, it was because he agreed with their other decisions like, for example, the union's commitment to the National Pact for the Referendum headed by Joan Ignasi Elena. Maybe Rivera was saving the gesture for an occasion closer to an election.
The unions have a difficult road ahead of them since the change of the labour model and the absence of a tradition of activism isn't an incentive for their work. But the surefire way to not have their own voice in the country they work in is by saying they won't talk about politics. Because, in the end, what isn't politics?