Urduliz underwent profound industrialization in the 20th century and, as has happened in many towns of Euskal Herria, radically transformed the popular aspect: a new people was built, together with the main industrial nucleus, leaving the small farmhouse. In 1944, Mechanics de la Peña S.A. was founded, which would rival the large Biscayan company Babcock & Wilcox.

The trajectory of this company has been similar to that of many industrial sectors: flowering, growth and international expansion during the forensic era; crisis in the 1980s and suspension of the first payment in 1986. Thereafter, the search for new partners, the convergence failed with Tubacex and the sale to an international company, Kvaerner. Along the way, he also sold the most valuable assets, such as the Mecaner automotive matrix, to the Fiat component division. In 1999 the company Mechanics de la Peña made a new suspension of payments and continued to work instead Mecaner, dependent on the company Fiat, with a reduction in posts by half. Due to the mergers of its owners, to date it is dependent on the Stellantis group. By the end of summer, the multinational has publicly announced the closure of the Urduliz plant and the dismissal of 148 workers. Long journey, multi-curve, which still does not have the last written sheet.

Old strategies are being used to achieve a very cheap closure. It is agreed not to invest more in a plant (or competent company) at the headquarters of the multinational. Technology and machinery are getting older, losing competitiveness. Subsequently, the workload is redirected to other subsidiaries or workplaces, generating artificial economic problems. There are countless ways of making fraudulent closures, but often, through these processes, they lead workers to despair, paying very little for layoffs. We have been in a deep process of deindustrialisation for years.

In order to deal with these closures, it is essential to organize workers, through a proactive trade union, which aims to improve working conditions, but also has control of workers in the head, linked to the territory in which it is established. Despite the differences, I am led by the Argentine Movement of Recovered Companies, especially in the case of these workshops, in which their work with neighborhoods and towns stands out. That was the key to the survival of these busy companies.

On the other hand, references to Industry 4.0 and similar are frequent, but the reality for workers is that our industrial fabric in our territory is becoming weaker. Unlimited profit increases are the basic law of capitalism. In addition, there has been a dark shadow over the future of many companies in the car sector. Continuing along the path that has been taken so far, in return we will see the closure of leaks, redundancies and the deindustrialization of industrial enterprises. Faced with this, what we have to seek is how to maintain the industrial weight, recovering the prominence of workers through self-management and enhancing an industrial fabric capable of facing ecological challenges, overcoming technocratic solutions and abandoning the capitalist model we suffer.

We cannot leave the future of Mecaner to the multinational Stellantis. We must not leave to the multinationals the future of the industrial fabric of our territory, with the excuse of market or productivity, which, as is well known, always have a trap.