MADRID — Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy managed to obtain lawmakers’ support last week for his second attempt at implementing an EU-mandated liberalization of port services, in an effort to defuse what’s become a high-voltage political and labor conflict.
However, stevedores threatened to go on strike if they didn’t obtain further guarantees that bulletproof their jobs.
Workers and company bosses reached a pre-agreement on Monday that protects the more than 6,000 jobs in exchange for productivity increases — some stevedores will earn a reported 10 percent less.
The nine-days strike, planned to start on Wednesday and to be carried out on alternate days, was cancelled for the first five days, meaning both parties have this week and the next to sign a definitive agreement.
The Spanish Congress on Thursday approved a new decree passed earlier by Rajoy’s cabinet to bring the country into compliance with a 2014 verdict of the European Court of Justice.
The court found that the country’s regulation of dock services — which basically forces companies to join a consortium of firms and hire workers from a unionized pool — violates the freedom of establishment protected by EU treaties. The tribunal required the country to change its laws and open the sector to competition. Spain has already accumulated a fine of €24 million for failing to comply with the decision.
The reform opens loading services in Spanish ports to market competition and allows companies to hire freely.
“Based on the information transmitted by the Spanish authorities, it appears that the reform does address the restrictions to the freedom of establishment of port operators identified by the ECJ,” said Enrico Brivio, a spokesperson for the European Commission.
However, the new law also meets a key labor demand, leaving the door open for company associations and labor unions to safeguard the sector’s current 6,000 jobs with an ad-hoc agreement. The government couldn’t guarantee the jobs by law — it said — as that would be against EU treaties.
A previous regulation was defeated in Congress in March due in large part to the opposition of the highly unionized stevedores, who had obtained the support of a majority of legislators — Rajoy rules with the smallest parliamentary backing since the 1970s.
This time, the stevedores also voiced their opposition and called for a strike. Unions said they will hold “go-slow” strikes, with workers laying down their tools at various points of the day on June 5, 7 and 9.
“Our main demand is maintaining all our jobs,” said Jordi Aragunde, a spokesman for the stevedores’ biggest union.
The companies’ association, Anesco, said Friday that representatives of both workers and employers will meet Monday to try to reach a compromise.
However, Anesco also said workers already launched an “undercover strike” by slashing their performance in most of the country’s ports and it demanded an end to such “illegal measures.”
Spanish dock workers’ CETM union leader Antolin Goya, In Madrid | Fernando Alvarado/EPA
About 60 percent of Spain’s trade in goods goes through its ports. The country’s exports last year reached €254 billion.
César Ramos, a Socialist MP and chair of the parliament’s public works commission, said he is optimistic that a strike can be avoided, but he blamed the government for going ahead with the reform before all sides could reach an agreement.
Ramos added that what Rajoy’s cabinet had done with the new decree was basically hand over the responsibility to workers and employers by approving a very vague decree that complies with Brussels but doesn’t address most points of friction.
Rajoy’s decree was approved in parliament with the help of the liberal Ciudadanos, the Basque Nationalist Party and the pro-independence Catalan European Democratic Party, while the center-left Socialists and far-left Podemos voted against.
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