A workers’ leader and neighbourhood activist, in 1976 Maruja Ruiz Martos led a people’s lock-in at the church of Sant Andreu de Palomar when her husband was dismissed from the Motor Ibérica company together with 1,800 other workers, after more than a month of strike action. The daughter of a family that suffered repression under the Franco regime, she arrived in Barcelona with her mother in 1949 and joined the PSUC (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia). Known as ’La Maruja of Nou Barris’, in 2011 she refused to accept the Barcelona Medal of Honour from the then mayor, Xavier Trias, “because of the cuts made to public services”. Along with other neighbourhood activists, she has fought for years to prevent construction on the site where the Casal de la Prosperitat now stands. The church of Sant Andreu is near the Fabra i Puig metro stop.
A workers’ leader and neighbourhood activist, she led a popular lockdown in Sant Andreu de Palomar church when her husband was dismissed from the Motor Ibérica company along with 1,800 other workers.