The president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has pointed out this Wednesday that the reduction in electricity demand is around 10%, "well below the 14 percent of the last general strike." At the same time, he has branded today's strike as "a political and official strike" due to the explicit support that, in his view, the Government has given it.
Garamendi has made these remarks in an interview on the Ana Rosa program, on Tele 5, broadcast by Europa Press. He explained that "the data we have is, above all, when you look a bit at what the effect of energy is, that we are around a 10 percent drop compared to what would be a normal day's demand."
From there, he has compared the situation with the last general strike, emphasizing that the retreat in electricity consumption is "well below what the last strike was, which was above 14 percent." In that vein, he has stressed that the figures he handles point to the fact that "there is normality."
With all that, he has taken the opportunity to "condemn everything that are spaces of violence, of closing streets or roads" that are being carried out by "some pickets" who "are not informative." He has asked that the right of those who wish to go to their workplace be respected, because "they have every right to work."
"Anomalous, political and official" strike
In Garamendi's view, the general strike promoted by the tenants' union and backed by UGT and CCOO is "quite anomalous, quite incomprehensible," since the Executive itself has encouraged it from the Council of Ministers.
"It's something that has never been seen, where you'll also have to ask yourself what is behind the strike, which effectively is a political matter in the face of an election," the business leader has said, who considers it "incredible" that a Government should promote a strike when the responsibility for what happens "will be its own." "I don't give credit to what we are living through," he has emphasized.
For this reason, he defines it as a "political" and "official" strike and suggests that it could equally be a "preventive strike," convened "curiously, ahead of general elections," a moment in which, he recalls, citizens must decide their vote. "I don't know whether it's to intimidate someone, to scare others, I'm not very sure what the reason is," he has stated, before encouraging people to go to the polls.
He has also expressed his wish that this not be a preview of what could happen if the right-wing parties win the elections of November 29. "If in the end it is supposed that taking to the streets is not doing what the people decide, then it will really be a regrettable image of Spain," he has warned, adding that there may be those who try to conquer in the streets what they have not managed to achieve "at the ballot box."
In any case, and according to Garamendi, in the CEOE they are "in mourning" because they do not forget the accidents —in reference to the Urda and Adamuz rail incidents, although without naming them expressly— nor the lack of investment by the Government. In his criticism of Pedro Sánchez’s Executive, he has also included the housing problem, lamenting that "houses are not being built" despite the fact that the employers’ association has been demanding this for some time.
Criticism of the origin of the call
The leader of the employers’ association has also censured that the general strike was called by an "something that says it is being a union, that it is not," which, according to him, places it "outside what would be a legal strike." Afterwards, the unions with which the CEOE habitually negotiates have joined, in order to provide "legal coverage for a strike that honestly had little to do with what is a strictly labor strike."
For this reason, he insists that the situation is "anomalous" and emphasizes that the organization he leads continues working with the union centers on the 4,500 collective bargaining agreements that remain open. "Love has never been broken" with the unions, he has stressed.
"Be careful, they are very respectable associations but they are not unions, be careful," he has warned, underlining right after that "semantics are very important in this life and in this case even more so."