Madrid metro staff advised to watch out for “musicians, beggars and gays”
“I don’t understand why it would assume that homosexuals wouldn’t pay for their tickets and that they need to be monitored.”
— Teodoro Piñuelas, secretary of UGT, a trade union which represents Madrid’s metro employees, speaking with newspaper El País, The Guardian reports.
A memo was circulated to metro employees in the Spanish capital, alerting them to be vigilant in checking for valid tickets, detailing specific groups of people to be wary of at certain stops. For one particular stop, employees were advised to look out for “musicians, beggars and gays.”
The metro’s managing director took to Twitter after employees alerted their union, claiming the memo was discrimination. “We have opened an investigation and will determine who is responsible for the unfortunate memo,” Ignacio González Velayos tweeted. The official metro account later added, “The metro condemns the memo.”
According to El País, the employee responsible for the memo has now been suspended.
Image Credit: Viviendo Madrid / Flickr
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