This Monday the mediation of the Basque Government begins in the metal conflict in Bizkaia

Euskaraz irakurri: Astelehen honetan hasiko da Jaurlaritzaren bitartekaritza Bizkaiko metalgintzaren lan-gatazkan

The conflict in the metal industry in Bizkaia enters a new stage next week with the mediation that the Basque Government is going to attempt between unions and employers to seek a rapprochement of positions in the negotiation of the sectoral agreement.

After more than eleven days of strike in the sector in 2022, the new year has begun without the parties having closed the gap in their positions, while the unions continue with mobilizations in the street.

Thus, the Basque Government has summoned employers and unions to a meeting tomorrow Monday in Bilbao.

The union majority that make up the negotiating table CCOO, LAB and UGT had requested their mediation after the vice-hendakari and Minister of Labor and Employment, Idoia Mendia, offered it in the Basque Parliament last December.

It is not the first time that the autonomous Executive intervenes to mediate in a labor conflict. It has already done so in conflicts experienced in companies such as Tubacex or Artiach and in the cleaning of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.

Now it is going to do so in the most important sector of Biscayan industry, metal, which directly employs more than 50,000 workers in Biscay.

One of the points that has entrenched the negotiation between the parties is the one referring to the salary increase. The unions ask for increases that ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of wages and consider that this is not guaranteed with the offer raised by the Biscayan Federation of Metal Companies (FVEM).

The days of strike carried out for the renewal of the sectoral agreement have been supported by all the unions with representation in the sector.

However, the first three, between June and July of last year, were promoted jointly, but at the turn of the summer the unity of action among all unions and while the CCOO, LAB, UGT, ESK, CGT and CNT have continued to call for mobilization together, ELA has done so on its own, amid insistent messages in favor of an indefinite strike in the sector.

Employers and unions have not met since last December 21, when the last meeting of the negotiating table for the agreement was held, which again concluded without progress.

At that meeting, LAB, CCOO and UGT presented a new proposal, which was rejected by the FVEM employers, considering that “it was far from what companies can offer, both in terms of wages, working hours, subrogation, licenses… .” .

The unions have started the year with new mobilizations, among them those that have been developing CCOO, LAB, UGT, ESK, CGT and CNT before the different courts of Bilbao, Barakaldo and Durango to accompany some workers accused of crimes such as public disorder or attack against authority committed in the last days of the strike.