Alcoa is synonymous with labor conflict and workers’ struggle in Galicia and Asturias, last enclaves of the manufacturing business spanish aluminum that until 1998 was public (10 Inespal factories) and that passed into the hands of the American multinational wrapped in a package of large electricity discounts that led to the withdrawal of the company as they were running out. The company maintains that manufacturing aluminum in Spain is no longer viable and that postulate puts in check more than 1,200 direct jobs in A Coruña, Avilés (Asturias) and San Cibrao (Cervo, Lugo).
“Alcoa did not come to produce aluminum in this country, it came to consume subsidies and create predatory companies, what is the Government waiting for to intervene in the plant? & Rdquor ;, asks Juan Ramón Paseiro, delegate of the works counciland Alu Iberica A Coruña. The 300 employees of the Coruña factory and many others of the Asturian one are in erte, with the factories closed since August, judicially intervened, at the doors of the creditors’ bankruptcy and waiting for the National Court to resolve the criminal case for the possible fraud in the sale of Alcoa to Parter Capital in 2019 —with the endorsement of the Ministry of Industry— and of this fund in 2020 to Grupo Riesgo, whom the staff defines as an “aluminum hitman & rdquor ;.
Neither the workers nor the Government want the Alcoa case to be repeated in its last factory, that of San Cibrao, for which the company announced the closure last year. The complex located in Cervo, in the A Mariña region, includes a primary aluminum plant and an alumina refinery with 1,100 jobs in total. In May 2020 Alcoa submitted an employment regulation file (ERE) for 534 workers, 84% of the workforce of the aluminum factory. with the intention of being left alone with the refining facility.
Void dismissal
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But Justice thwarted his plans. The Superior Court of Xustiza de Galicia, a year ago, and the Supreme Court, in October, they declared this mass dismissal null whose “sole and primary purpose & rdquor; It was “shutting down the vats and closing the factory in the most profitable way possible & rdquor; with “bad faith & rdquor; and using the right percentages to start the closure of the factory without returning the aid received.
The strike in San Cibrao is indefinite Since September and on the 17th, the mobilization escalated to a general strike throughout the region due to the industrial crisis. On the 29th, Alcoa made a move: it offers to stay with the factory through a “medium-long-term” solution that, in the short term, involves turning off the tanks and suspending activity for two years. Starting in 2024, reactivation would depend on energy price agreements to be negotiated at this time. The proposal also includes a promise not to present any ere for four years, to defuse a conflict that has been raging for two years. Barricades, concentrations and demonstrations due to the Alcoa crisis are a constant in A Coruña, Lugo and Asturias to demand an industrial future that has not yet been forged.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com