Employment lawyer and anti-Franco activist, Montserrat Avilés i Vila was a leading figure in the defence of workers’ rights. From the moment she and her husband opened their office in 1960, she dealt with many of the labour and trade union conflicts that took place during the final years of the Franco regime and the beginning of the Transition to Democracy. She acted as mediator in labour disputes with companies such as SEAT, Harry Walker and Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima. In the 1960s, she was a member of the board of the Barcelona Bar Association, seeking to democratise an institution that lacked internal transparency and independence.
Politically, she was active in the Popular Liberation Front and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. In 1973, she was one of the 113 people arrested at the meeting of the anti-Franco Assembly of Catalonia held in the church of Santa Maria Mitjancera, in C. Entença. She was arrested for her opposition to the dictatorship and spent three months in La Modelo prison.
The employment law firm was open until 2013, when the documentary collection was donated to the Historical Archive of the Cipriano García Foundation.
A labour and anti-Franco activist, she defended workers’ rights. Her office was a benchmark in collective conflicts in large companies in the late Franco regime and during the Transition.