The Port of Bilbao has lost 67% of general merchandise and 54% of containers during the dockers’ strike, which was one month old yesterday, according to the companies grouped in Bilboestiba.
As indicated, between October 9 and November 9, 43 fewer vessel calls, 21% lower the previous month. This has been a 55% reduction in dry cargo tons manipulated on the docks, a situation that, they point out, “transcends the purely port dynamics and has a very negative impact on economic activity, as many companies, associations and institutions have recently shown.”
The dockers’ strike lasts from yesterday, Monday for another month, until December 9. Unions demand, among other issues, that the breaks four days for every 14 worked, that the situation of the eventual, and that the workers tasks outside the actual stowage that are specified in the previous agreement as their own.
But nevertheless, Bilboestiba has refused to “assess the latest union proposal” because in his opinion “it violates current legislation”. Specifically, they consider that the fact that the unions propose to maintain the “complementary tasks or commercial services in terms analogous to the current agreement” is “non-negotiable as it has been declared illegal by the National Markets and Competition Commission. (CNMC) as well as by successive judgments of the National Court and the Supreme Court “.
Faced with the calls for negotiation made public in recent days by the unions and the request for mediation by the State Sectoral Joint Commission, the companies reject said mediation and “insist on proposing arbitration that commits the parties because it is the only option that demonstrates a true negotiating vocation “.
In any case, they remember that “the conditions to start any negotiation necessarily go through calling off the strike, recover normal work performance and allow the work of external personnel in complementary tasks “.
The companies have also denounced that “due to the refusal of the temporary workers of the Randstad ETT to work on weekends, the permanent workers worked more shifts at nights and weekends, which entails a plus additional”.
They reiterate that they are “not complying with the minimum services” to which is added an absenteeism rate of almost 20% (3% attributable to COVID) that does not imply an economic loss for workers since Bilboestiba complements 100% of the salary”.
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