Coordinadora Confirms the V Framework Agreement for Stevedoring

The signing of the V Framework Agreement for Stevedoring, which took place today, Friday, April 8, has been received in a “positive and fruitful” manner by the State Coordinator of Maritime Workers, which held its 2022 Federal Assembly this week at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, under the slogan “We Are Ports. New Times.” The Coordinator brings together 6,500 permanent port workers and 1,300 temporary workers.

General Coordinator Antolín Goya states that the signing of the V Framework Agreement represents “a before and after” and that it “brings a final touch” to a long process that has involved a labor conflict and “many hours of negotiations in which consultations were carried out with the CMC, the European Union, and the two ministries involved to save the ruling against the previous regulation and three legal reforms. An agreement has been reached that provides coverage, stability, and security for both workers and companies, and ends the uncertainty that weighed on traffic and services,” according to elmercentil.es.

Antolín Goya warns that there is a possibility that “a sector of the employers may try to undermine the agreement; however, it has all the necessary elements to move forward, as it contemplates a balance between the parties and is solid and robust enough for us to be in a position to sign it.”

In this regard, he adds that “it is possible that in the coming years we will face labor tensions, because the legislation that extends working life, on one hand, and automation, which allows greater movement of goods with fewer personnel, on the other, will cause some imbalances that will be attempted to be covered through mechanisms such as early retirements and incentivized layoffs.”

The union leader values that this V Agreement has been “one of the most scrutinized to observe compliance with Competition rules, European rulings, and the new labor reform.” Total acceptance of it is expected to guarantee a “model of port stability” at the European level, and legal stability of the model has been achieved, where it is intended to develop “this model in the basic operational form of the Port Employment Centers (CPE) and, specifically, of the CPE with the companies that are their employers.”

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