Iryo and other rail companies in Spain threaten strikes this summer

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Warning for train passengers as companies give advance for possible strike action

Iryo and other rail companies in Spain threaten strikes this summer

The unions CGT and CCOO in Spain are threatening work stoppages for employees of the private rail company Iryo and the railways infrastructure management company Adif if the management of both companies do not resolve outstanding conflicts between workers and the companies.

Iryo have provisionally announced strikes for Friday June 28 and Friday July 5, 2024 if the company does not sit down to negotiate with its staff the first collective agreement of the sector. This was decided after an assembly, “in which hundreds of workers from different union sections participated,” according to the union organisation SFF-CGT in a communiqué.

They say that the company is being too passive in the face of workers’ demands, which they have been making since November, to increase wages and improve conditions for workers.

With Iryo touted as an up-and-coming alternative to Renfe for travelling by train in Spain, these work stoppages planned for summer could greatly affect both passengers and the reputation of the company.

In the case of Adif, the union CCOO has announced that it will propose to the rest of the trade union organisations that, in the event that on June 15 they have still not received authorisation for the agreement to reduce working hours signed on March 14, they will “call for demonstrations to demand compliance with the agreement”.

The union recalled that almost three months have passed since, for the second time, the majority of the negotiating committee of the Second Collective Bargaining Agreement of Adif and Adif AV agreed with the management of the companies on the reduction of the working day, but once again it has not yet come to pass.

“We find ourselves in a situation in which, from the public companies and the ministries that hijack collective bargaining, they seem determined to make fools of the workers,” said a CCOO statement.

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