ELA, LAB, ESK, Steilas, EHNE and Hiru called for mobilisations on the 27th of March in work centres or at home to defend health, jobs and working conditions

In view of the increasing deterioration in workers’ health, jobs and working conditions, the trade unions are asking the Basque and Navarre Government and the Confebask and CEN employers’ associations to give priority to health, jobs and working conditions. They demand the application of necessary, effective prevention steps in essential services, stopping of all non-essential work and guaranteeing jobs and working conditions.

ELA, LAB, ESK, STEILAS, EHNE and HIRU called workers to take action on the 27th of March in their work centres or at home, by coming out onto their balconies, or in the absence of these, to their windows, to defend health, jobs and working conditions. They are directly asking the Basque and Navarre Government and employers’ associations, Confebask and CEN, who they demand must apply the necessary, effective prevention steps in essential services, stopping all non-essential work and guaranteeing jobs and working conditions.

"As workers, we are angry because they are putting our health at risk,” they state in view of the crisis generated by the Coronavirus-Covid19.

The trade unions are grieved by the situation of helplessness affecting the working classes due to the crisis generated by the Corona virus. “They are putting our health at risk,” they comment.

They report that the staff working in essential services, that is to say, people who work in the healthcare sector, homes for the elderly, Home Help, cleaning, public transport, ambulances, supermarkets… are being forced to go to work every day without the correct preventive steps that guarantee their health, therefore, they underscore, “they are permanently at risk while at work.”

However, they are not the only ones who are suffering from this situation. “The workers who don’t work in essential services are forced to go to work because the Basque Government, the Nafarroa Government and the employers’ associations are giving priority to economic interests over their health. The health of these workers is also not guaranteed,” they emphasise.

In addition to putting the health of the working classes at risk, they affirm that they are doing the same with employment. They denounce the trail of layoffs for workers with temporary, insecure contracts and thousands of ERTEs (temporary redundancy plans), without any type of negotiations taking place. They add that the current crisis is being used to make the working conditions of thousands of people even more insecure. “They made us pay for the previous crisis. The employers’ associations and the governments now also want us to pay for the healthcare crisis.”

For all these reasons, they called for action on the 27th of March in the work centres to defend health, jobs and working conditions. The call had a broad response by workers from various sectors.