Workers of Mercedes Benz Vitoria, in a previous day of strike. /
The organizers ELA, LAB and ESK point out that production “will be stopped” this Wednesday due to the mobilization that is not supported by the union majority of the UGT, CC OO and the rest of the centrals
The strike day this Wednesday at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vitoria is having the majority support of the workers. This is confirmed by the convening unions -ELA, LAB and ESK- that estimate the support of the strike by the production workshop staff at close to 95% with the start of the working day in the morning shift.
Except for the temporary workers, most of the workers have not shown up at their posts, so that the activity in the different painting and gross and final assembly lines “will surely be stopped” today, they say. They point out that this morning there were “more pickets than ever” at the entrance of the Alava factory for the morning shift, which starts at 6:00.
Waiting for the follow-up data provided by the company, which acknowledges that the factory is “quite paralyzed”, other union sources lower the level of support and point out that it is not as majority as that of last week, although they point out that the incidence is “very important” and they put it at around 80%. There are lines that are working on painting, although intermittently, but final assembly is “practically stopped”, which prevents vehicles from leaving the production line.
The plant in Alava, the largest Basque industry with 5,000 workers, is experiencing its fourth day of strike in two weeks, which today coincides with the visit of Lehendakari Íñigo Urkullu to the headquarters of the automobile company in Stuttgart with the aim of guaranteeing the multimillion-dollar investment of 1,200 euros announced for the Vitorian factory.
Today’s protest does not have the support of the union majority of the committee after the UGT, CC OO, PIM and Ekintza distanced themselves yesterday after seeing progress in the negotiation of the agreement in the meeting held with the management of the Vitoria factory.
The strike for this July 6 is called by ELA, LAB and ESK. At 10:30 a.m. a demonstration is scheduled to start from the entrance of the factory on Calle Las Arenas. Also at that time the driving unions have scheduled a meeting open to “any member of the workforce” in which they will explain what happened in yesterday’s negotiation meeting with the management. This afternoon (6:30 p.m.) another mobilization will take place in the center of the Alava capital, starting in Plaza Bilbao.