Only music bafles, a long table, chairs and banners are located below the red information tent that they have placed in the center of Untzaga Square. Despite the cold and rain, there are workers who are on strike three times a week. “Personally, it’s being very hard,” says Arosa, “we just slept and the income is getting less and less.” However, both he and his colleague Joseba Apellaniz are clear that they have to continue “fighting on the street”. However, the relationship with those who are not on strike has cooled down: “What rages us most is that if we get something out of our struggle, it will be for the good of all and that as long as we are here they are not by our side.”

Five years ago there were 800 workers, currently about 200. In addition to the staff reduction, working conditions have also decreased in the company Alfa Precision Casting (APC), which works at the plant. It is the largest working centre in the Alpha Group and more than half of the workers work there.

This evolution has not been fortuitous. Apellaniz has been in the factory for 20 years and in the last ten years has seen Alfa run out of strength: “Despite the bad conditions, we have always made quiet progress. We’ve been told there’s no money to raise wages and yet we’ve continued to work.” Arosa joins her partner: “We’ve had the same salary for ten years, not only that, but we got down 10 percent, and we didn’t say anything.”

LAB spokesman Jon Baranguan said that the purchasing power of workers is actually reduced by 23%. “Since 2008 they have the same pay, but in society everything is on the rise.” In the face of this, they have offered several proposals to the company, but “they have repeated to us that there is no money and that we all have to go in the same direction to get the company moving. We have done what we have said, but we have never had benefits,” says Arosa, who has not been able to contain his anger.

The union delegates have on several occasions requested information on the company's situation: accounting, profits, general information...The company's response has also been "no" in this sense, according to the same source. Thus, they had to take “other paths”: “We went to the Commercial Register to draw the labor accounts as unions,” says Baranguán. Here we took the first surprise: we realised that EUR 2,289,000 was allocated among the three directors.” The unions have called for an investment of EUR 400,000 a year to improve the conditions of workers, but while they have claimed that there is no money, each has "taken" EUR 800,000.

The fact was brought to the attention of the Workers' Assembly. The reception of the news was a "milestone" in the opinion of Arosa and Apellaniz: "Do you ask everyone for an effort and distribute that money between them? It is unacceptable. It’s been the key to the strike.”

The company’s managers accepted the meeting proposal: it was the first time they received it after five years. “They agreed, without any shame, that they should be allocated that amount of money.” Employers were willing to invest in maintaining the company: maintaining all jobs, making new recruits to increase staff and improving conditions.

However, the storm soon reached Eibar, as the company’s proposal consisted of dismissing 40 workers from the new agreement and closing the entire machining section. “We said it was enough. Tell them that they are prepared for a new industrial plan and see what their intention has been!” says Apellaniz.

Strike time

The works council agreed five days of strike to denounce the situation: 27, 28 and 29 November and 4 and 5 December. Baranguán said that, after the first protests, the company started to "threaten" workers: “On December 11, when the workers were not going to work, they told us that they were going to include the company in the settlement and they filtered a document that they were going to present to the judge.” Threatened by threats, they decided to start an indefinite strike.

The company submitted a request for liquidation at the Court of Donostia-San Sebastián on 7 December. The LAB leader pointed out that the fact that they were held between two holiday days "clearly demonstrates the company's bad intentions." Alfa Precision Casting has been handed over to new temporary managers and new investors have one month to submit a new project. APC workers have called for "transparency" in this ongoing process.

However, the settlement plan has not been the company’s last move: it has presented a dossier for the final abolition of jobs. This measure will result in the dismissal of 131 workers from the planta.La employers' intention is to dissolve the APC in two phases: the first phase will clear 51 workers. Of these, 48 are strikers and the other three have been evicted from another working centre of the group, as reported by the unions in a communiqué. Workers have denounced that the company's redundancy plan is "discriminatory" for workers. All other workers will be dismissed from their jobs until 31 July.

On the other hand, the delegates of LAB and ELA will be impeached, a decision that "directly violates" the right to freedom of association, according to Baranguán. They have also denounced that the company has not respected the right to strike, as during their strike they have hired other workers to continue production.

At the time of writing these lines, APC workers will go on strike for 80 days. A first contact has been maintained with those responsible on the basis of initial demands: maintaining jobs, improving compensation, avoiding traumatic redundancies and using objective criteria throughout the process. However, in order to achieve all this, they consider the support of the citizens essential. On 16 February, a demonstration was planned from the Unzaga Plaza in Eibar. The red tent continued in the air and in the rain.