It might seem that what is confronting the dock workers’ unions of the Port of Bilbao and the stevedoring companies is only the negotiation of an agreement. But it’s much more than that. The way of working in the future of this sector is at stake in the pulse between workers and employers grouped in the Bilboestiba society. A form that companies want to change at all costs and that unions strive to maintain.
This tug of war, which already accumulates 25 days of unemployment and threatening to extend another month, until December 9, which takes place on the stage of strategic facilities for the economy of Bizkaia and the whole of Euskadi, such as the Port of Bilbao, keeps trapped hundreds of workers from the port itself and from industrial companies, and from other sectors, who need the activity of the same to receive or remove their goods, without seeming to have any quick signs of a solution.
The counselor Arantxa Tapia on Tuesday threw more fuel on the fire of the conflict, stating that minimum services are not met decreed in the strike – something that the unions flatly deny and the companies confirm due to the activity of the pickets – that the work of other sectors of the port that are not stevedoring, such as the transport of goods, is being prevented. the futures of hundreds of industrial companies are being jeopardized. The counselor has not provided any solution in this regard, arguing that it is a port of general interest that depends on the Ministry and defending that “coercive measures” should be the last to be adopted. Of course, he has warned that a ship that is going to another port, may not return to Bilbao, and that at this time of pandemic “the right to strike” should not cause “the country’s industries are paralyzed or at risk of paralysis“.
The conflict between workers and companies arises from the discrepancies when negotiating the next collective agreement and what the unions denounce as breaches of the current one nowadays. Behind that is the struggle of the four companies grouped in Biboestiba – Bergà ©, Toro y Betolaza, Bosco and SLP- to comply with the liberalization of the stevedoring sector and that these employees stop doing jobs that they had assumed until now, beyond those of the stevedoring, that companies now want to refer to temporary ones, with lower labor costs for them.
But what are the unions asking for? The representative plants of the sector, Coordinator, UGT, ELA, LAB and Kaia have presented a platform to the employers in which, among other issues, they want compliance with the breaks set in the agreement of four days of payment for every 14 days of work. The company wants only three to be released, despite the fact that it was reported to the Labor Inspectorate. “The workforce has more than 14,000 accumulated days,” he says Israel Ruiz, representative of UGT.
They also demand have a closed work calendar, so that workers know in advance the shift in which they must work, something that now they do not know until the day before, they say.
Both claims are based on the consideration that not enough template to get the jobs done. Currently there are 312 permanent and 103 temporary. Some eventual that belong to a job bank and are hired every day, and that the unions want that they become fixed.
In addition, they want to continue doing the jobs that are not typical of stevedores but that are included in the agreement as are the tasks of reception of delivery of goods. As it no longer appears in the current law as the exclusive task of stevedores, companies want to outsource them or hire eventuals to carry them out. The unions believe that leaving them without those tasks opens the ban on further downsizing.
“At the end of the day, it is about making the sector precarious,” says the LAB representative, Imanol Urtiaga.
“Using temporary workers, many of whom have been in this situation for 12 years, instead of expanding the permanent staff.”
While the companies accuse them of trying to impose their conditions, they defend themselves: “We are a group that has inherited certain working conditions that the system now no longer wants,” they denounce, denouncing that all sectors are tending to a precariousness each older time.
Sources of Bilboestiba They point out that the law protects them so that jobs that are not exclusive to stevedoring can be done on an occasional basis, with lower labor costs for them. “But the stevedores want to appropriate them and don’t let the eventuals in.” They also denounce that it is a sector with a level of absenteeism of 13% that makes it very difficult for companies to organize work.
Fearing that the strike will drag on for another month, they demand that the minimum services that prevent the pickets be enforced.
At the moment there is no concerted meeting between the parties. The conflict can go for a long time.
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