Michelin Lasarte takes to the streets for the IPC

2023-06-05 18:31:06

The Michelin-Lasarte workforce -made up of some five hundred people- starred in a general strike this Monday as the culmination of a series of strikes and partial protests promoted by the works council within the framework of the negotiation of the 2023-2026 collective agreement, in which the workers’ representatives have drawn a very clear red line, linking all wage concepts to inflation data. From that reference, they assure, they will not move. And they expect the company to do so soon.

“The rise in inflation is already very noticeable. We have petered and we cannot continue like this »

Aitciber Ibarluzea

would work

If this were not the case, sources from the LAB union (majority in the union representation of the firm with six out of a total of twelve delegates) assure, “new general strikes are already requested before the labor authority.” Strikes that would take place on the 19th, and that would have two more aftershocks: on July 9 and 10.

Yesterday’s protest day began at five in the morning, when the first shift starts, with a concentration at the entrance to the factory, which was followed by a caravan of cars through the streets of Donostia. Already at noon, and as a prelude to the demonstration that toured the streets of Lasarte-Oria in the afternoon, the workers met again at the plant gate.

“The company pays dividends to shareholders and now it goes and rakes us four bitches”

Whistles, firecrackers and yellow vests, shouts and red flares took over the goal, while those gathered there demanded increases in accordance with the IPC “to recover what was lost”.

There they were, along with their companions, Aitziber Ibarluzea and Susana Azores. The first, with 22 years in the company, works making “a part of the wheels” and explains that she “is fighting for an agreement with decent conditions.” “The rise in life is very noticeable, due to all the purchasing power that we have lost in recent years,” she points out. “We have petered and we cannot continue like this,” she adds.

“When I joined 21 years ago I earned more than now, we have changed a lot”

Azores insists on this loss of purchasing power. «When I joined 21 years ago, I earned even more than now, and in recent years we have changed a lot, in hours, in conditions…». “They open and close you when they feel like it,” he says, while focusing on the bonuses that “production people” receive and that “are frozen without collecting inflation.”

Carlos Martín works in the metal fabric section of the wheels, and after 23 years in the company, he regrets that Michelin-Lasarte “has had a surplus of profits with the pandemic and with everything, and it has been scratching us four bitches.”

«Michelin raises its prices to distributors and cannot raise the CPI for us?»

“When you have asked us to tighten our belts, we have done so, and now we do not ask you for gold and Moor, but for what is normal,” he points out. «On top of that, two days ago he gave them some dividends from the nose. Are they more important than the worker? I have not seen such unity among the workers for a long time », she assures.

Álvaro Del Val acknowledges that the factory “has always had social peace, but now people are tired.” «The only thing we ask is that they guarantee us the CPI, as in the surrounding industry. Michelin used to be an attractive company, but it’s not so attractive anymore,” he says.