Unions Emphasize That ERTEs Have Prevented Us From Going Over 20% Unemployment

The general secretaries of UGT and CC OO , Pepe Álvarez and Unai Sordo, respectively, have agreed to value the usefulness of the ERTEs , which, they consider, have prevented unemployment from rising further during the crisis caused by the coronavirus.

This has been highlighted in an interview that on the occasion of the celebration this Saturday of the first of May they have carried out in the program Hora 25 of the Ser chain, in which the leader of CC OO has stated that “we were able to put on the table the ERTE, which have surely prevented us from going through 20% unemployment instead of being at 16% “.

Álvarez, who acknowledged that “things have been done wrong . We see it in the queues of hunger,” said, however, that “if we had not taken the ERTE out of the closet, we would be facing a much greater job destruction. Three million have been maintained. of jobs by ERTE and aid to companies “.

In Sordo’s opinion, the workers have been the ones who “pulled the pandemic, sometimes with very low wages, without protective equipment and without knowing what this Covid was like. This class has sustained the country and a series of reforms must be recovered. to improve wages and employment and to give certainty “.

“When vaccination is consolidated,” Sordo continued, “we must recover the reform agenda that involves raising the SMI, for a pension reform that opens up a perspective that in the coming years there will be a pension system and a labor reform that avoid that the current formula is that of temporary employment and dismissal. “

For the Secretary General of the UGT, “this country lives in a state of tension and that makes us lose opportunities “, and considered that “EU funds should not only be for the green economy or digitization, but also to create jobs for quality”.

“What has happened in the United States,” Álvarez emphasized, “has led citizens to feel the need for union workers. That workers are organized is the best way to achieve improvements (…) In companies where there is union, there is higher contracts, fewer accidents … In the sectors with union affiliation there are better conditions “.

Regarding the labor reform, Unai Sordo was convinced that “the current labor reform can and should be turned around. The Biden thing is not anecdotal. We may be facing a paradigm shift to deal with crises . Biden vindicates the unions because through them they built the American middle class “, said the leader of CC OO in reference to the president of the United States.

According to Sordo, “we need to rebuild the redistribution of income. In the previous crisis there were growing inequalities that have fed some of the political monsters that we began to see here but that in the United States came to govern in the figure of Donald Trump “, the predecessor of Biden.

He added that “it is not true that Brussels asks Spain to maintain the Labor Reform of 2012 by wind and tide. We have to balance the relations between employers and workers.”

Regarding the demonstration on Saturday, the UGT leader commented that they are “delighted” that the third vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz , will attend .

“May 1 not be taken away from us. It is not an invention of the extreme right. A minister who comes from where she comes … it is reasonable that she is with us, ” said Pepe Álvarez, referring to his membership in the Communist Party and member of United We Can.