The general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has considered it "despicable" that it is being attempted to hold "one person or a group" of workers responsible for the railway accident recorded last week in Urda (Toledo), underlining that behind what happened is the "lack of investment".
Álvarez expressed himself in these terms to the media this Tuesday in Vigo, a city to which he traveled to speak at an assembly of delegates on the occasion of the general strike called for next November 11 throughout the national territory.
"It is an absolutely despicable act that a person or a group of workers has been held responsible for an accident in which, without any doubt, there are many causes and surely, many of them have to do with the lack of technological investment so that in the final extreme a decision of these characteristics does not depend on a person," Álvarez stated, insisting that the weight of a tragedy of this magnitude cannot be placed on a single worker.
Also asked about whether UGT will join the stoppage days promoted by the machinists' union Semaf on November 10 and 12, before and after the general strike, he specified that it is the union's railway structure that determines this type of support, although he has called for unity of action among organizations.
In this context, he recalled that one of the machinists who died in the accident was affiliated with UGT, and he called for setting aside the "prominence" of each union central to "think about the common good" and about the workers, "who are having a very hard time".