The workers at Laudio’s Guardian Glass had to live a hard day on Wednesday. Early in the morning they noticed the outgoing entrances of the “outsiders” in the plant, as the management showed its intention to turn off the oven.

The order to shut down the furnace was initially issued without a technician from Osalan and the Basque Government’s Industrial Department, but the refusal of the workers momentarily interrupted this process. However, at the end, with the support of the technicians themselves, the process of cooling the oven started at 11:00 in the morning. After several hours of worry and restlessness, the worst suspicions of the workers were thus fulfilled.

The Basque Government has said that the shutdown will guarantee "the integrity and safety of the furnace" so that it can welcome new investors and projects. The mayor of Laudio, Ainize Gastaka, told Radio Euskadi on Tuesday that he knew of the possible existence of an investor. But the staff makes sure that if you turn off the oven quickly and with the glass inside, it will not be available from now on.

The workers strongly criticized the position of the Basque Government: "The workers have been abandoned again, the one who had to come to help and the one who had to be next to the workers, has not been, it seems that they are eating pintxos and it is a shame," explained worker Aitor Peral Aiaraldea.eus in a video received by the media.

"From what we have learned, they have decided to start the process after two hours of meeting. Now this cooling process is already started, but it has not been done in a controlled way, the way they have started it will not be reversed. After so much propaganda, they have put into practice the plan that the Guardian had from the beginning," said Maddalen Muguruza, a member of the LAB.

Strike down, but continue mobilizations

During the meeting with the workers of the members of the business committee represented by ELA and LAB after the oven started to shut down, they were very angry with the "false promises" and this "defenselessness" of the institutions.

They have decided to cancel the indefinite strike that they were going to start this Thursday, since the purpose of the call was to keep the oven on: "In any case, we will call for mobilizations in the next few days to denounce the absurdity of this closure and what happened today," the business committee said in a statement.

"What has become clear here is that multinationals can make any decision without any conditions, because there is no body that will put real conditions and limits on their decision-making," said Muguruza, "workers today have been left without any tools."

On Friday there will be a demonstration at 18:00 hours by SOS Ayala and the Guardian business commission from the football field of Alzirat to the center of Llodio.