It took quite a bit of perseverance for the strikers at Novaltia.
Photo: Works Council Novaltia
“Finally,” says Ibai Carranza to “nd.derTag”. The longest strike in Europe is history, explains the works council member of the Basque trade union ELA. Workers at pharmaceutical logistics company Novaltia in Bilbao, Basque, are happy with a result they fought for over 1,345 days, three years and eight months. “Nobody expected or wanted such a long strike, but the result shows that the impossible is possible,” adds Carranza. The approximately two dozen colleagues are “relieved”. It was very hard, especially in the past few months, “because we didn’t know if there would be a solution or how long we would be in this situation”. Although the workforce wanted to end the strike long ago, a good result had to be achieved. “We didn’t want to end it at any price,” explains the works council.
The result – significant wage increases – is something to be proud of. The central goal of having a separate collective agreement again was also achieved. Novaltia had forced the bad Spanish collective agreement on the Basques, which had become possible through a labor market reform. The Social Democratic government actually wanted to delete this, but the core of it was retained.
This is one of the reasons why the labor dispute was necessary, in which wage increases of up to 34 percent were fought for. Helka Fernández, who works in the camp of the merger of pharmacies with the legal form of a “cooperative”, previously had to make ends meet in expensive Bilbao with almost 1000 euros. “I didn’t even have to think about children,” she says. For the money she was supposed to “even compete at the weekend, with no surcharges.” That was the last straw, the 31-year-old reports, explaining why she went on strike with around half of the 45-strong workforce in Bilbao in 2019. Your situation has now improved significantly. In the future, the warehouse worker will receive an annual salary of 22,500 euros, 1,607 euros in 14 salaries.
The conclusion is also sweetened by a sum of almost 9,500 euros that Novaltia has to pay to each striker. They can go on their well-deserved vacation. Everyone is entitled to 60 days from the past two years alone, explains the 37-year-old Carranza. The company has also pledged to the strike committee and the union not to use retaliatory measures against strikers, such as transfers, demotions or dismissals.
The gesture that Novaltia had to pay a symbolic euro to the union’s strike fund for every day of the strike was also important. Without this “resistance fund” from the ELA and their support, the fight would have been impossible, the employees agree. Strike funds are unknown in Spain at the large trade unions CCOO and UGT. In addition to the ELA, the small Basque trade union LAB also has a resistance fund.
Instead of relying on social partnership, the Basques prefer to rely on their employees. The ELA, founded in 1911 by Christian Democrats, does not shy away from any struggle at work or on social issues. The fighting power of the employees is the only guarantee “to force the companies to engage in real negotiations,” according to ELA boss Mitxel Lakuntza. “You can never predict how long a strike will last, so it’s the union’s job to be prepared to hold out.”
Employees organized in the ELA also held out for another lengthy strike: the strike at the German abrasives manufacturer Pferd-Rüggeberg lasted more than two years. Two arbitrary dismissals of pregnant women could thus be reversed. The Novaltia employees were also encouraged by strikes by other workers, such as the cleaning staff at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, who fought successfully for almost a year, or at Zuloaga Vulcanizados, who went on strike for two years for a company wage agreement.
But the Novaltia strike was definitely the longest in Europe. The occupation of a tea factory in France for 1,336 days has been traded as the longest strike so far. This company was taken over by the employees and the tea is now sold under the name 1336.