The president of the Confederación Regional de Organizaciones Empresariales de Murcia (CROEM), Miguel López Abad, has placed the follow-up to the general strike in the Region of Murcia at around 3% and has described the call as a "failure".
According to the data provided by López Abad at 13:00, the average impact of the stoppage does not reach 3% over a representative sample of 55,000 companies and "around some 450,000 workers", a figure that represents 64% of regional employment.
The CROEM official has explained that these figures come from the monitoring that the organization has been carrying out since 7:00, in coordination with associations, federations and around fifty companies spread across the Region.
He has also compared these data with those from the previous general strike, when electricity consumption fell between 22% and 25%, with peaks of 29%, compared with the drop of between 3% and 5% recorded on this occasion, according to the indicators of Red Eléctrica and Iberdrola.
By area of activity, the employers' group has detected the highest percentages of participation at Navantia's shipyard in Cartagena, where the follow-up has been around 22%, and in the agricultural cooperatives integrated in FECOAM, which have reached approximately 10%.
In the rest of the productive fabric, the impact has not gone beyond 1% or 2%, with large areas of activity without any notable changes, as López Abad has detailed in a briefing for the media.
The business leader has also reported some isolated incidents at the entrances to industrial estates due to the presence of information pickets, situations that have been resolved "thanks to the action of the Guardia Civil and the Security Forces of the State".
According to Croem, the most notable episodes have been recorded in Lorca, where the Association of Producers-Exporters of Fruits and Vegetables of the Region of Murcia (Proexport) has denounced the blocking of 16 buses with a capacity for 880 agricultural workers next to the Felipe VI pavilion, which has forced the Guardia Civil to intervene. In addition, Proexport has denounced "pressures and intimidation of workers".
The Association of Food Industries (Agrupal) has reported specific incidents to access workplaces, while the Interprofessional associations of Lemon and Grapefruit (Ailimpo), Feed Compound Manufacturers (Apicose) and Driving Schools of Murcia (Aramur) have reported delays in the arrival of part of the workforce and in the start-up of certain shifts.
At the same time, the transport employers’ association Froet has notified temporary holds of trucks at the Integrated Transport Center of Murcia and delays in the first departures of buses from the capital’s station, a service that has been restored to normal at 8:30 hours.
Croem has insisted that absences caused by transport problems are not counted as adherence to the strike and has demanded that the right to work be guaranteed for those who decide not to participate in the protests.