- The Tubacex group has followed the path opened by ITP and has closed the door to a civilised solution to the labour conflict, as it will not allow the departure of redundant workers. Despite the fact that the leadership appears to be a suicide, it is a strategy that has a great deal of support.
This week, Tubacex’s management explained to the unions that redundant workers would not be able to return to their workplaces and that they will be charged while they are at home. The decision did not surprise anyone, as the multinational has followed the example of the ITP, but it will prevent the orderly closure of the labour dispute.
In fact, the company has made it clear that its intention is not to comply with the judgments and will again propose “negotiated departures”. Tubacex shall have facilities for making such redundancies. In fact, some of the redundant workers have already found another job, and for the rest it is not a very good future to stay at home for a long time without working, given that it may take a year or more until the Supreme Court settles the appeal.
In other words, the management will use the legal loopholes to start the legal mobbing and make the layoffs from the back door.
After the loss of trials, Tubacex’s leadership will seek to agree to dismissals, leaving workers at home, through a legal “mobbing”
This strategy would be impossible without the support of public institutions, and during these days no criticism has been heard from the Basque Government about the obstinacy of the Tubacex company. Such a legalistic government has looked elsewhere in this case and, on the contrary, from the Counsellor, Arantza Tapia, the words of those responsible for Tubacex have been repeated: that we must return to the new normalcy (i.e. consider that the judgments will not be complied with), that the factory must be opened as soon as possible... Basically what managers say to the unions.
The police have been sent to factories on several occasions to guarantee the right to work for a few, but the 129 dismissed people do not seem to have the same, apparently, very important right.
Management suicidal management
Over a 150-day strike, management has done disastrous management since the beginning of the pandemic to stage that it has structural problems. According to the judges, the pandemic situation was not as serious as that which Tubacex had declared, in which the company rejected the possibility of not paying the social security charges merely because it was able to carry out layoffs in the short term.
In other words, for the redundancies, the company paid the social costs of hundreds of workers and, moreover, all these workers have been re-employed as a result of the rulings. The company will force them to stay home, but they will charge the same. Two meaningless decisions.
A crisis, yes or no?
Tubacex has insisted that its sector, gas and oil, is in a period of transition and that it needs to be adapted, dismissing workers. However, the direction and reality of the company are contradictory with respect to this statement.
The management of Tubacex’s leadership can be suicidal to provoke fear among strikers
On the one hand, if the current situation was known in 2019, why did Tubacex opt for buying companies from the Middle East to deepen the gas market (NTS Group)? Where are the investments in renewable energy?
On the other hand, how is it possible for former President Álvaro Videgain to declare in March, at the National Securities Market Commission, that the order list has risen and that at the same time there is a structural crisis?
A strategy of suicidal or intimidating management?
At this week’s meeting, the management added a new nail to the possible disaster situation, indicating that it is approaching the suspension of payments, even though it has recently secured a fund of EUR 150 million.
As you can see, Tubacex leaders send contradictory messages depending on the public, according to the information they receive. Before investors and the market, they sell excellent economic health. Faced with the unions, a dark and serious picture, accused of creating a lack of trust among clients on an indefinite strike.
The dissonance of the management has two explanations. Either they prefer to close the TTI and Aceralava out of vanity (they will obviously try to circumvent the law as much as they can, rejecting the sentences), or they have put in place a final strategy of fear of the strikers so that the strike does not bring a clear victory.
In both cases, workers will have to decide on the future of the labour dispute, as the company does not intend to reach a short-term agreement and the next negotiating table it proposes will be to speak directly on the Temporary Employment Regulation Dossier.