ELA is the trade union that has grown most over the past four years

Sep 14, 2018
ELA has presented the campaign for the new concentrated period of trade union elections, to which it comes with a representation of 36.20% in Hego Euskal Herria, as the trade union that has grown most over the past four years. It has improved its representation, reaching 40.83% in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and 22.86% in Navarra.

The slogan chosen for the upcoming elections is “Zurekin goaz, with all our strength”. Alongside the General Secretary, Adolfo Muñoz “Txiki”, Amaia Muñoa and Joseba Villarreal, the Deputy General Secretary and the Elections Officer, respectively, took part in the presentation of ELA’s electoral campaign.

Amaia Muñoa emphasised the importance held by delegates when defending labour and social rights. “ELA is coming to these elections, in our opinion, with the credibility that has been given by the work it has carried out. In spite of the fact that today is not an easy time for trade unionism, ELA has made a stand, defending labour and social rights”. Muñoa recalled that ELA has over 100,000 members, which allows it to face up to the current challenges of trade unionism with complete independence.

Muñoz, on the other hand, stated that ELA has been “in the front line of the struggle against social cut backs”. He recalled that there are many work centres where the fight against job insecurity has been real; “where ELA and its representatives were aware that defending salary increases based on the RPI as a reference was sentencing our colleagues to many years of living with low wages. For this reason, we have obtained increases of 8%, 15%, 20% and up to 40%”.

Accordingly, he referred to “the struggles being faced by women” where ELA has taken on a leading role, which has been used to “unite the best part of trade unionism to the feminist struggle”.

ELA’s General Secretary has criticised the attempts made by the Basque Government and Employers to neutralise the majority representation of ELA with anti-democratic decisions, as is the case of the decree for the institutionalisation of social dialogue.

Joseba Villarreal, Trade Union Elections Officer, explained that during the concentrated period between September 2018 and April 2019, 42.6% of the trade union representation in Hego Euskal Herria is chosen (9,998 delegates out of a total of 23,440).