Note published in La Jornada de Oriente, Puebla – Economía y Ecología (Puebla – Economy and Ecology) Section by Aurelio Fernández.
Read the note in its original source
As of 11 at night of yesterday, the Volkswagen Independent Union of Automotive Industry Workers (Sitiavw) and the company had not yet reached an agreement on salaries.
The secretary of Press and Publicity, Manuel Aburto Hernández, stated throughout the day that negotiations continued their course with representatives of the German Firm at the facilities of the Department of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), in Mexico City.
Nevertheless, the spokesman was brief in the information provided to the media, never revealing whether there were counteroffers, how many there were and of which percentages.
He didn’t disclose the moment in which they lowered their pretension of an increase of 12 percentual points to the income of their 7,695 unionized workers either.
It should be recalled that this percentage was considered to be unviable from the beginning by the director of Corporate Communication of the assembler, Mauricio Kuri Curiel, on the grounds that the conditions of the company would make this impossible, given the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The last time that a strike broke out in Volkswagen de México was on the year of 2009 and it lasted for four days.
The strike was lifted after a 3 percent increase to the salary and a one-time bonus of 2,000 pesos for the unionized workers was agreed upon.
In this 2020, the notice of strike deposited with the labor authorities has an expiration date of August 18 at 11 hours.
Last Friday, the union even released a schedule of shifts for standing watch in the event that they should have to place red and black flags at the facilities of the plant located in Cuautlancingo.
On Sunday, the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex) put pressure on the SITIAVW to desist from requesting an increase of that percentage and held the workers’ representation responsible for what might happen, in terms of economy, in the state of Puebla, in the event that they decided to go on strike.
In the same sense, the head of the Business Coordinating Council, Ignacio Alarcón Rodríguez Pacheco called yesterday for “restraint” from both parties and reiterated that these are difficult times- given the Covid-19 pandemic – to be thinking about increasing salaries.
In the opinion of the representative of the private sector, the union would have to understand the context.
At the same time, he defended Volkswagen, maintaining that it has always supported its workers.
“Better times will possibly come soon, when we can talk about salary increases for all of the productive plant … (A strike) would be very harmful for Puebla”, he stated.
