The General Union of Workers (UGT) has decided abandon bus drivers’ strike scheduled for November 28 and 29 and other days in December when reaching an agreement with the employers’ association Spanish Confederation of Bus Transport (Confebús) to lower the early retirement age.
Despite the commitment reached between UGT and Confebús, expressed in a statement from this organization and which is limited to the fact that the employers will request this reduction in the retirement age in the subsequent regulatory development of a law that is being drafted by the Ministry of Social Securityother conveners they keep the strike (CCOO, CGT, Free Transport Union and USO), according to union sources.
The deputy secretary general of the State Federation of Services, Mobility and Consumption of UGT, Pedro Aller Fernández, has commented on why they are calling off the strike. Confebus has committed to UGT to request in the Evaluation Commission that will regulate the law prepared by the Ministry of Social Security the reduction of the reducing coefficients for the anticipation of retirement age of bus drivers.
If the employers’ association breaks this agreement, Aller Fernández, who has related it to the pact recently signed in the merchandise and crane sectors, “we would see the measures to be adopted“. For his part, the general secretary of the Highway and Logistics sector of FSC-CCOO, Francisco José Vegas Rosado, has commented that his union maintains the call for a strike, which in his opinion, UGT has never wanted.
He added that the decision adopted by UGT is “a false closure” of the strike, among other reasons because “neither the employers nor the UGT are legitimized to initiate the request for the reduction of the reduction coefficients” to lower the age of access to early retirement, and added that Confebús It also has no capacity to call off the strike.
In addition, Vegas Rosado has indicated that the technical commission – Evaluation, with the participation of other ministries – that will develop the law prepared by the ministry could veto the application of the reducing coefficients if there were no financial sufficiency to be able to apply them, which in turn depends on the quotes of the transport companies and the agreements they have with the different administrations.
For the general secretary of the Federal Road Transport Sector of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Raúl Martínez Alcalá, has declared that this union also maintains the strike and that the agreement announced this Sunday by Confebús and UGT after having been negotiating this Saturday in a meeting to which they were not summoned, “it’s an act of faith” which should be endorsed by the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA).
According to the statement sent by Confebús “the union organization UGT and the employers’ association CONFEBUS have agreed rescind the strike call in the road passenger transport sector scheduled for November 28 and 29, December 5 and 9 and December 23 onwards”.
In that document it has been specified that “the agreement consists of requesting, jointly, once the new Royal Decree comes into force on the establishment of reducing coefficients to anticipate the retirement age, the beginning of the procedure for the establishment of reducing coefficients for the anticipation of the retirement age of personnel who perform bus driver tasks.” It is also detailed in the statement that “the agreement aims to maintain the proper balance economic and financial aspects of public contracts, preserving employment and the viability of business activity”.
Furthermore, it details that “it involves the constitution of a table that establishes the mechanisms to compensate for financial imbalances that could occur in public contracts at the local, regional and state level that could be generated in companies due to the approval and application of the increase in the Social Security contributions and the establishment of reducing coefficients”. Finally, he regrets that “despite the efforts of both organizations, It has not been possible to get CCOO to adopt this same agreement“.