The minister of Industry. Reyes Maroto, will participate in the meeting of this Monday, with the committee, the head of the Spri, Iñaki Tellechea, will be the representation of the basque Government
a Whip of the Executive in the tough negotiations for the continuity of the shipyard, adds: “we’ve Only worked here, only we know how to make ships”
Juanjo Llordén look with safety to the minister Arantxa Tapia in the corridors of Parliament and says: “That report that you have presented so does my son who is in the Bachelor”. The black t-shirt dress with the slogan “The Naval ez itxi”, it’s already clear that there will be no report to present the basque Government, which may convince you that it is not possible to a public rescue of the shipyard in Sestao. “That is the only way out,” he says.
Llordén, secretary of the business committee of The Navy by the union CAT -the second in representation behind UGT – and one of the faces most visible of the struggle that maintains the template of the yard to prevent the closure, has become the specialist in asking the counselor “uncomfortable questions” at the meetings that have been held so far. So uncomfortable some, that at the last meeting with the committee, the counselor got up from the table because Llordén said that “he sought only the holder that The Navy does not close” without regard to the employment. After the first anger “have already been filed the rough edges”, but the trade unionist continues to fear that, farewell the whole of the template, “it would be easier for the Government to find an investor, to know how many people it would be the current workers. So do not shut down the company and that the same would be good for the Government, but for us there”. That is why, he warns: “we’re Going to rename the step to the Government, the two Governments”, he says, because he believes that both the basque and central have responsibility in the situation of the shipyard and the two should compromise. “We’re not going to pay”.
With 50 years of age, leads 36 as a worker of The Naval. “A whole life”. Belongs to the last fifth of those who entered the shipyard in Sestao, as an apprentice, when he was only 14 years old. Entered as a welder, then was a boilermaker, after in the technical office. Her father was then working in the yard, and two of his uncles and his brother-in-law… “I have had up to five immediate family members working in The Navy”, he says, something that is repeated in many of the workers. “That’s why we support so many people”. It is as if working in the shipyard was a matter of family legacy.
In those times, when Juanjo went on to become part of the template, The Navy was “a company of great prestige, with more than 3,500 workers.” Nothing to do with the current situation, with just 177 people on staff and already on the countdown to lose his job if an investment does not remedies.
“Around we had to blast Furnaces of Vizcaya, Babcok&Wilcox, General Electric company… Now there is nothing left, it has dismantled the Left Margin”.
Virtually all of the current employees have between 50 and 53 years old. “How do you say to people that age after being 36 or 37 years at the same company they lose their job? We have only worked in The Navy, only we know how to make boats”, says.
Llordén spent 12 years in business committee of The Navy. Came to form part of the representation of the workers right after the tortuous path of the privatisation of the shipyard. Since then the company has lived fifteen Records of Employment Regulation. “Many workers have nearly exhausted the unemployment insurance”.
With the sale to the private sector also feared the closure of the shipyard, and it was the usual slogan that now it is again used of The Naval ez itxi, but the yard resisted and went forward, as if he had several lives. “I’ve lived through all the crises”, because before that he lived for his father, recalls. “There was a saying among the workers: ‘Here is for more than Iribar'” equating the great stops of the legendary goalkeeper, Athletic with strikes that were to vindicate their rights. “Unfortunately we have been accustomed to go to the streets to defend what we had to do and we have to be proud of. The pity is that now we can lose everything due to poor management of many; governments, business…”
Recognizes that many in the company have not been fully aware until now of the imminent danger of closure: “Throughout the year we have sold ‘smoke screens’, and despite being in contest of creditors, it appeared that the thing is going to fix it and that if it was the dredger was already solved… But I already knew that a competition of creditors do not bring anything good. And now with Van Oord, moving away to make the dredger and the SRE in place, the people are already aware of that in a month or two we can be out in the street”, which later on proceed to the negotiation of the conditions of termination of contracts.
that is why the committee started from an intense calendar of mobilizations, including a large demonstration on 1 December in Bilbao: “The politicians are only concerned when there is movement,” he says. And he gives as an example the protests of the pensioners: “there Have been many for many years, but have achieved something when they have gone to the street many days.”
The claim will always be the same: go back to having public participation as a guarantee that you do not lose the employment. “Can be done”, he says, “as much as it committed the Governments to say that it is only possible if there is a private investor”. Because Llordén, as almost all the workers of The Navy, is convinced that the investor is not going to arrive before the occurrence of the layoffs. “It’s not going to get. Will come when the template is already out. That’s why there’s that prevent us to take, because if not, The Navy will never again be as we know it now. There will come a investor and make ships or shoes or mills.”
At the meeting held by the committee today, Monday, with the basque Government and the central, and the workers will keep again the need of a shipyard under the umbrella of the public because “privatisation has failed”. In this meeting in which will participate the minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto and the secretary of State for Industry, while the basque Government will be the responsible of the Spri, Iñaki Tellechea, the representative, will, without a doubt the possibility that you have 150 workers enter again in Navantia for the arrangements following privatisation. That I would go to Cadiz or Ferrol. “Do you consider leaving here? I don’t want to planteármelo. We’re stripping and we’re not going to pay, so this does not happen. But if so we would have to move. This is why I say: if the shipyard closes and the 88% of the template have to pack up to return to the public sector, wouldn’t it be better that we will not leave the exile, and that is The Naval re-to be public?”.
While the workers are fighting for the continuity of the shipyard, it seems already very far away that past in which the children entered the same company as his father. Juajo has two children. One he studied the other has studied basque philology. But even if they had wanted to, none could have been raised to work in The Navy,
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