CCOO and UGT-FICA have decided to call three days of strike in the tanning industry for the 10th, 11th and 12th of November, thereby extending the protest beyond 11 November, on which a general strike across all of Spain is already scheduled.
This Thursday, the union representatives of the sector’s 3,600 employees met with the employers’ association at the Servicio Interconfederal de Mediación y Arbitraje (SIMA), where the Tanning Agreement, the Industrial Straps and Hides Agreement, and the Skin Tanning Agreement for Furriers are negotiated. The lack of progress in the talks, according to the trade union organizations, has led to the work stoppage being extended to a total of three days.
In a public statement, CCOO de Industria criticized that the employers’ association yesterday made “not a single move on reducing working hours,” raised its wage increase offer “by a paltry 1%” over four years, and refused to guarantee the maintenance of purchasing power in pay slips.
The union argues that the business side “offers an insufficient wage increase” and “refuses to maintain purchasing power if inflation is higher than the increases agreed.” “Thus, it is impossible to make ends meet,” the organization emphasized.
According to the data provided by CCOO, the tanning sector consists of about ninety companies, with most of them concentrated in Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia.
Strikes in other sectors
The union headquarters recalls that, in addition to the work stoppage in the tanning industrial activity, another strike is scheduled for next week in the meat sector, starting on the 9th and lasting until the 13th, with improved pay and working conditions as the main demands.
Likewise, the organization does not rule out promoting stoppages in the perfumery and related sector if the employers’ association’s position remains unchanged in the negotiation of the collective agreement. In this sense, the union is considering taking one step further and studying “new measures of pressure and mobilization.”