The president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, harshly criticized this Wednesday the Government for backing and even promoting the general strike day. He has gone so far as to describe the call as “official,” “atypical,” and “preventive,” and has warned that they will demand responsibilities if the situation “gets out of hand.”
In an interview on Antena 3, reported by Europa Press, Garamendi reproached that members of the Executive have explicitly encouraged the stoppage: “From the Government, the second deputy prime minister has been urging the strike and yesterday, in the Moncloa, two ministers were encouraging the strike. Strike against whom? That’s the question,” he said. Immediately afterward, he stressed that “some responsibility will fall on the Government” in matters such as housing or public services when “it has been governing for eight years.”
The leader of the employers’ association believes this is an unprecedented episode in recent democratic history. “We’ve had 50 years of democracy, this is the first time we’re seeing this story, the first time, I think, almost in the world, that there’s a preventive strike,” he said when asked whether this general stoppage represents the last service by the unions to the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
Garamendi defended that differences should be resolved within the framework of social dialogue and criticized that “going to the street” happens when the results at the ballot boxes do not match: “Hey, it’s the ballot boxes that rule, and if I don’t like the ballot boxes I’m going to the street... Well, I don’t think this is very democratic,” he emphasized.
Moderate decline in electricity consumption
To measure the real effect of the strike, the president of the CEOE turned to data from Red Eléctrica. As he highlighted, between 9:00 and 11:00 hours, energy consumption fell by 6%, a figure far from that recorded in other general stoppages: “Normally in the strike of year 14 it was on the order of 15%,” he recalled.
He added that during the night—the time frame that mainly reflects the activity of large industry—the retreat in the use of energy was limited to 2.5%.
In his analysis, Garamendi has pointed out that the strike’s follow-up is perceived with greater clarity in the factories, where there is a more intense union presence, while among self-employed workers “there is practically no impact” and small retail is operating normally, as in the vast majority of Spanish municipalities.
“In 8,000 towns we have in Spain, there is no impact,” he said.
With regard to the main commercial areas of the cities, he cited Madrid’s Gran Vía as an example, where he pointed out that “everything was open.” At the same time, he warned of the possible effect of the information pickets if they pressure businesses to close: “There is the right not to go to work, but there is the right to work.”