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23 February, 2011
Paperworkers across Spain, belonging to the two major national labour federations, began strike action today in frustration to futile year-long bargaining that has left them nothing. They will repeat the 24-hour action on 3 March. The bargaining between ICEM affiliates FIA-UGT and FSC-CCOO and the employers’ grouping, Aspapel, is for 2010-2012 national sector talks and covers 17,500 workers at some 120 mills and plants.
The dispute is not just over salaries, but adverse salary structures that employers are trying to impose that will prove detrimental to workers in the long term. The dispute also is over Aspapel’s aggressive methods to liberalise work rules, a pivotal factor in worker frustration and not getting a pay increase in 2010. Spanish paperworkers need to hear from us.
Please cut and paste this message, and send to the e-mails below:
Dear Spanish Comrades,
We have heard through the ICEM of your current strike actions and we support you. We are appalled that pulp and paper bosses under Aspapel have stalled bargaining since 2009. Please inform all FIA-UGT and FSC-CCOO paperworkers in Spain of our Solidarity toward their courageous industrial actions.
(Signed)
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Early this week, the two unions conducted a picket at the headquarters of Spanish paper company SAICA. Other companies met with strike action today include Torraspapel, Iberpapel, SmurfitKappa, Holmen, SCA, Newark, Papertech, and several others. Paperworkers at one company have pledged to carry out day-long strikes once every week until April.
The two sides are not widely apart on wages, but it is the rabid flexibility changes and revisionist consumer price index (CPI) re-structuring demands that are anti-social. Employers have been very outspoken in their demand of this as a consequence to Spain’s economic situation. Worker frustration over this injustice is very evident in this dispute.
Entering a mediation session at Servico Interconfederal de Mediación y Arbitraje (SIMA) in Madrid yesterday, paperworkers through their unions are seeking a retroactive I January 2010 increase of 3%, with a 1 January 2011 increase of between 1.5 and 2%. In 2012, the unions seek 2-2.5% increases, depending on pay scale structures. Employers are offering one percent less. Please do your part by sending the above message.