Key meeting at the Iveco Madrid plant. The company’s management has agreed to sit down and negotiate with the unions of the Barajas factory in the face of the production saturation that the plant is facing, as a result of the massive follow-up of the workforce to the strikes called in April in protest of the proposed Collective agreement proposed by the company. Iveco Madrid thus gives in to its refusal to dialogue while the call for strikes is still active and meets with the works council this Thursday, April 25, to begin negotiations in a meeting that will inaugurate a calendar of meetings that will extend into May.
Calling off the strikes and recovering a climate of social peace were the demands that the Italian group put on the table to sit down with the union forces, until the Madrid mobilizations led them to correct their position. “The company has given in to sit down due to the pressure of the workforce and the collapse of the plant,” Lorena Álamo Rico, secretary of the CCOO works council at Iveco, explains to La Información, who estimates the saturation at “close to 700 million trucks unable to deliver” due to the succession of strikes called during April and “the refusal of the staff to collaborate with overtime and come on Saturdays in some areas of the center.”
From the works council of the factory that produces 140 trucks a day and employs 3,000 people, they allege that the company is offering a 1% salary increase for this year and the same increase for the next, despite the fact that the group has harvested 600 million euros of profits in a year that closed with an average CPI of 3.5%. In this scenario, Álamo points out that the proposal of the committee formed by representatives of UGT FICA, CCOO and CGT involves “proposing an increase of 5.5%, coinciding with the loss of purchasing power in the last three years that the previous agreement, plus the CPI”.
Given the precedent of Valladolid
The closest precedent is the negotiation of the agreement that took place at the Valladolid plant a few weeks ago and is negotiated separately from Madrid. In this case, Iveco proposed a 2.5% salary increase to the workers at the Pucelana factory, which represents an increase of 1.5 points above the initial proposal. For the unions, the improvement was insufficient, but it prevented the workers at the Castilla y León plants from joining the mobilizations in Madrid. If the same proposal is moved to the Madrid plant at Thursday’s meeting, Álamo points out that “it would not be enough” and advocates taking measures to alleviate the “deterioration of labor flexibility” that has led to numerous judicial conflicts.
Threat of indefinite strike
“Based on the assessment we get from the meeting, if we do not see signs that the company shows its willingness to collaborate to improve its proposal, we will work to call an indefinite strike starting in May,” underlines the committee’s secretariat, which points out to an “acceptable proposal” as a condition for calling off the strike days called for April 29 and 30. The unions base their proposal on the 11% salary increase that Iveco agreed with the workers in the Italian plants between 2023 and 2024, a possible comparative grievance that according to UGT translates into “contempt for the Spanish factories, which are the benchmarks.” in quality among its plants around the world and the driver of the group’s profits.”
From the social side, they value the commitment of the staff to the strike and are hopeful because the company has given in to establish a calendar without having to call off the strikes. The committee invites workers to attend the general assembly next Friday to inform them about the status of the negotiation and the developments that will happen in the coming days.
