Once again, an appeal has been made to fight and mobilize industrial sites in Bizkaia to deal with the precarious situation experienced by thousands of workers in the metal, the strongest sector of the territory. At a press conference at FVEM headquarters, the unions ELA, CCOO, LAB, UGT, ESK, CGT, USO and CNT announced that on Thursday morning they will convene eight days of strike.

Camping in front of the employers' building in Bilbao, the unions have started the new cycle of mobilizations, have offered information about their situation and at 18:30 they will hold a demonstration from the Basque Square.

In recent weeks they have met several times with representatives of the FVEM, the last on Wednesday, but the unions have highlighted the lack of response, "they have gone to the meeting to gain time". Thus, they have registered calls for another eight strike days on 28 and 29 November and 4, 5, 12, 13, 18 and 19 December.

For fairer distribution and equality

Among other issues, trade unions call for temporary contracts to be limited and for more stringent measures to be taken in the field of occupational health, in addition to subrogation and a "fairer" distribution of benefits: "We are calling for a wage increase sufficient to recover lost purchasing power," ELA explained.

Trade unions have also called for companies to take further steps towards gender equality and have given a reality: Only 15 per cent of workers working in the metal sector are women and suffer a wage gap.