The great employer CEOE requires the Government to bring to this Thursday’s meeting a package of concrete, detailed and sufficient measures to stop the strike of carriers, which is already going on for the tenth consecutive day. The last offer of Ministry of transport generated divisions within the organization chaired by Antonio Garamendi and from the business caucus they demand a consensus that ends the discontent and reestablishes the affected supply chains. But they warn that the impact on the Spanish economy of a lengthening of the strikes that “threatens with a great economic and social crisis”, as they have stated in a statement.
The alarm among the associations of agri-food manufacturers and suppliers has increased over the days, despite the fact that the harsh tone of the latest communications does not translate into shortages or general shortages of products in supermarkets. The Asociation Aecoc On Tuesday, he described the incidence of strikes as “a state problem” and a day later it rose one eighth and considers that these have generated “a worse situation than during the pandemic.” The CEOE has wanted to push this pressure towards the Administration with its own statement in which it considers that “the majority of the business sectors of this country are already in an unsustainable situation”.
From the business bench they fear the contagion effect that the blockade of roads can generate in sectors such as the industrial sector, where the stoppage of furnaces and other electro-intensive installations represents a substantial damage to production – due to the high cost of starting up and shutting down the machinery -. They also describe the situation of the countryside -whose organizations demonstrated this past Sunday in Madrid- and the fishing -whose brotherhoods have called to stop, with uneven follow-up, as a result of the rise in fuel prices-.
Division between employers
That is why those of Garamendi call on the Government to “accelerate and clarify the necessary actions aimed at redirecting this situation.” The Executive, faced with this growing pressure, has already had to make a move and advance the key meeting with the sector one day, which will be on Thursday despite the fact that it was initially scheduled for Friday. The last one was closed with a business division within the National Road Transport Committee (CNTC), the body that brings together all the entities with legal representation and in which the National Transport Platform does not participate (the conveners of the first strikes).
Related news
The majority employer CETM -attached to the CEOE- supported the package of 500 million euros announced by the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, although the second entity with the most associates, Fenadismer, rejected the declaration of intent and formally joined the strikes. In fact, according to several sources in the sector, part of its associates were already participating in the protests and, given the impossibility of sending them concrete measures after the meeting with the Government, Fenadismer decided to step aside and support those of the theirs who wanted to stop.
A problem for the CEOE is that within Fenadismer there is ATA, its self-employed association, which rejects Sánchez’s offer. “The Government reconvenes the CNTC. I hope it is to finalize an aid package for the self-employed and companies in the transport sector and not to continue dizzying the partridge and without specifying measures. They are already losing enough money,” wrote the president of ATA and vice president of CEOE, lorenzo loveon his Twitter account.