Four days of strike have put the working conditions of the Litera Meat macro-slaughterhouse located in Binéfar (Huesca) in focus. The largest in Spain and, according to those responsible, in Europe. Called by the CNT union between Tuesday and Friday of this week, its monitoring has reached peaks of 85% in union figures, while the company reflects that the activity has developed “normally” and without incidents. The workers of a center that opened its doors in the summer of 2019 and employs 1,800 people have reported situations that they consider in many cases “abusive”, with non-compliance in aspects such as security, overtime or days of rest.
Litera Meat belongs to the Pini Group, originally from Italy and one of the European giants in the meat industry. A profile that transfers to the plant located in Aragón, where around 30,000 pigs are slaughtered per day in its 130,000 square meters. The strike, anticipated by two lawsuits filed by CNT in the month of September – one for the violation of the right to freedom of association and another for non-compliance with the prevention of occupational risks – has had hundreds of adherents at the doors of the plant and moments of tension with the presence of the Civil Guard and the company’s private security to prevent them from escalating.
CNT explains that a strike that it calls “historic” was born because there is a “violation of rights in practically all areas of labor activity, many of them already reported and sanctioned by the Labor Inspectorate.”
It refers to “non-compliance with the regulations on overtime, vacations, holidays, daily and weekly breaks; constant dismissals for being on medical leave – often caused by exorbitant rhythms on the work belts or by having to bone pieces of pork for ten hours a day with dull knives -; for requesting leave to care for children or dependent relatives or for practically any health circumstance that prevents a worker from going to work; or very serious failures in the prevention of occupational risks.”
Litera Meat closed the year 2022 with profits of more than 800 million euros, and the union asserts that it did so “at the expense of workers’ health” and, often, “imposing a climate of fear,” with a regime “hostile” based on “completely arbitrary sanctions and dismissals, administered by the company and related managers who corner anyone who tries to exercise any right that entails the slightest reduction in the production of that day”.
For all these reasons, the CNT union has demanded through this strike issues that it considers “basic”: “Reduce the speed of the belts to a rate that does not ruin the health of the workers; revoke sanctions and reinstate colleagues unfairly dismissed; guarantee free access to the bathroom during the work day, without restrictions and when each worker has the need; improve protective equipment and work clothing, complying with the collective agreement; allow proper sharpening of knives, essential to prevent accidents; or ensure that the machines are used safely, with the necessary number of workers.”
The strike, described as a “resounding success”, has been responded to by the company. CNT assures that the pickets have had a growing number of participants and that the buses made available by Litera Meat for its employees arrived at the plant “half empty.” The strike committee managed to access the facilities and there they saw “many tapes without people and movement of personnel”, with the suspicion that the Pini Group “is pulling in external workers and internal scabs” to stop the effects of the stoppages, according to these same sources.
CNT announces “economic consequences” for the macro-slaughterhouse, at a time when there is also greater activity due to the Christmas holidays. Litera Meat, on the other hand, minimizes the impact of the strike, since “work activity has not been paralyzed at any time,” it assures, and plant operations have been “adapted to this exceptional situation.” He adds that “a large part of the people who have demonstrated are not part of the company’s staff,” and insists on “the recurrent use of misinformation in the discourse used by CNT, also disseminating figures that do not correspond to the reality of the facts.”
At the same time, in its reply to the union, it states that it follows an occupational risk prevention plan approved by the company’s management, assumed by its entire organizational structure and known by all its workers through prior and mandatory training. He explains, on the other hand, that the company has a specific knife sharpening area made up of ten people exclusively in charge of guaranteeing the good condition of the work utensils throughout the day.
The occupational risk prevention area, these sources add, is responsible for supplying the necessary protective equipment to all the company’s workers, as well as the work clothing required by the different areas of the meat industry to guarantee safety in the workplace. the entire work environment. Nearly 1,300,000 euros annually are allocated to the supply of protective equipment, clothing and work footwear, he concludes.
The CNT union section in Litera Meat has, according to it, “growing support” since its implementation four years ago. It has promoted a strike from which the Workers’ Commissions (CC OO) has distanced itself, with a majority presence in the works council and which accuses CNT of moving for “political interests” and of pursuing “possible blackmail in search of its own benefits.” ”, rather than being governed by “a true concern for the Litera Meat workers.” UGT and OSTA are also present in the works council and the latter has aligned itself with CNT’s demands.
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