Santander (EFE).- Thousands of people have demonstrated this May Day in Santander to demand an increase in wages and a decrease in prices that will allow workers to weather “an inflationary crisis that endangers families.”
Shouting “enough of precariousness” or “long live the struggle of the working class” they have walked, on a sunny day, the route between Jesús de Monasterio street and the Pereda gardens, where a manifesto has been read .
The march, led by the UGT and CCOO and, as in other cities, under the motto “Raise wages, lower prices and distribute the benefits”, has had some 2,500 participants according to the local police and more than 5,000 attendees according to the calling unions.
The general secretaries of the UGT and CCOO in Cantabria, Mariano Carmona and Rosa Mantecón, have urged the employers to sit down to negotiate the state agreement for collective bargaining and have valued the “success” of the labor reform.
In addition, he stated, the Cantabrian unions now face in the autonomous community “more than 50 percent of the blocked territorial collective bargaining and more than eighty agreements of the 132 that are negotiated.”
“If the state agreement for collective bargaining and employment is not unlocked, the CCOO and UGT unions will be more forceful if possible,” he warned the employer.
The Cantabrian workers “will not continue to tolerate this loss of purchasing power”, he stated, before assessing the example of the metal workers, who left the strike with “dignity” for twenty days in Cantabria.
“Historic” Achievements for Social Dialogue
For his part, Carmona (UGT) has highlighted this May Day the functioning of the social dialogue and the agreements that have been reached during this legislature, which “at first started with certain difficulties” because Spain “was not used” to a government of coalition.
“However, the social dialogue has been fruitful and various very important measures have been implemented,” he stated, before pointing out some such as the subsidy for those over 52, the labor and pension reform or the rise in the minimum wage, a “historical fact” in his opinion.
Although he has also regretted that the inflationary trend has caused “the wage increase to go to the income statement of multinationals.”
And it has had an impact on “the historical results of the labor reform” because one in three contracts made in Spain are permanent, quite the opposite of before, and there are more than 20 million workers registered with Social Security”. “It is an absolute success, we have fallen short in some aspects but we will continue working on it”, he said.
28M on the horizon
Mantecón has also asked that the workers go “massively” on 28M to vote “for progress” because there is “much at stake: continue advancing or put what we have advanced up to now at risk”.
Looking ahead to May 28, Carmona has warned future regional and municipal governments that “any solution has to be taken within social dialogue because it is the only guarantee that the burdens are shared.”