reports

By Temporary Stevedores of the Port of Bilbao

The temporary workers in stowage and unstowage work in the port of Bilbao carry out peonage work both on ships and in delivery and reception (the latter, delivery and reception or complementary tasks).

The stevedoring companies based in the port of Bilbao, the social part and the port authority promote eventuality and precariousness in complementary tasks. Some tasks historically carried out by longshoremen and that are now carried out with temporary and hourly contracts even with an agreement in force, in which said tasks are collected. They decided to outsource and make this work more precarious, skipping the current agreement, subjecting them to a different agreement, hiring other workers in other "more concise" economic, labor and training conditions in October 2020).

The loss of these tasks accounted for about 30% of the workload for permanent and temporary staff.

The work of the stevedoring worker consists of the correct placement of the cargo inside the holds of the ships and outside them. To do this, they use manual means: Wood, chains, rubber bands, metal supports, mesh... Among others.

The workers are summoned the day before the work day, except on Mondays and after holidays, which are held on the same day.

This perpetual system of appeals makes family conciliation and any type of planning very difficult, especially when it lasts for at least 14 years.

Until before the pandemic, they only worked from Monday to Friday, then their services are available at work peaks on weekends and at night on weekdays, a “right” that was taken from them after supporting the 2020 strike.

– 24 hours waiting for a call to go down to work, 361 days a year.

*** Until 2017, the calls were in person on Mondays and on post-holiday days, on many occasions after traveling to the workplace, they returned home, without any type of insurance. They also traveled without being discharged for medical examinations and other training.

– No vacations, no days for own affairs.

– Contribution: 3 years to contribute one year, depending on the days worked. To generate 4 months of unemployment they have to be registered for 365 days. Each daily contract is high and low on the same day, which means that they need to have 365 contracts to access a service.

– No right to leave for any reason on the days that we are not discharged. During the state of alarm due to Covid-19, they were only discharged for 14 days, the rest of the time they were left to their own devices.

– Until not long ago, with problems to be able to take paternity or maternity leave.

To put ourselves in context, in 2008, when there were 60 workers on the temporary job market, it coincided with the last entry to the permanent staff of Bilboestiba. At this time, another 50 compañer@s also enter the temporary job market.

Prior to this, there were regular entries to the permanent staff of Bilboestiba, since there was always a workload in the port of Bilbao. The problem has always been eradicated in the distribution of the same and in carrying it out from the decent conditions that the permanent workers of Bilboestiba had and have.

The stevedoring companies (Toro y Betolaza, Csp, Berge and SLP) hire exclusively permanent personnel from Bilboestiba-CPE (port employment center), where the companies themselves are shareholders.

When they don't give enough (this has been a constant in recent decades) they hire workers from the temporary stock market, who have averaged 150-180 days worked annually from 2010 to 2020... Something more than tips of work.

It is evident that the permanent workforce requires a re-dimensioning, the numbers say it, the workload of this last decade says it and it is regulated by the current agreement in force in its article 15 (more specifically in its last paragraph):

“The Mixed Commission will study, based on the calculation of special days held during the year, the size of the workforce. An annual increase in the workforce is established, which will be the result of applying 0.25% to the number of special shifts carried out in the year by RLE, RLC and Temporary Provision II workers, third paragraph, during the year. precedent, without prejudice to the study of the dimensioning of the staff to be prepared on an annual basis.”

On the other hand, the Bilboestiba stevedoring workforce has decreased in recent years due to retirements and deaths, there are 120 fewer workers since 2008. Many of these early retirements have been paid with public money, something that does not make much sense since Bilboestiba -CPE is a private company. This would open another thread to the rather tricky debate.

Meanwhile, temporary workers accumulated more than 2,000 daily contracts signed (perhaps in fraud of law) but without any option to become part of the permanent workforce.

In 2009 and the beginning of 2010, temporary workers suffered the first punishment of the crisis, working 30 days in a year. Until well into 2011 normal work is not recovered.

In 2014 they are "recommended" to obtain Trailer (C+E), CAP and ADR cards, which means an average of 3000 euros each out of their pocket, after 5 years they have to renew everything, with the consequent financial outlay.

All this, supposedly, to be able to carry out horizontal transport as drivers. A job that is carried out by stevedores in all the other ports of the state and that in Bilbao, there is a strange silence every time it is mentioned and it quickly passes into collective oblivion.

In 2016 they consult their situation with a lawyer and mobilizations and strict compliance with the agreement and security regulations are carried out.

Therefore, they receive threats and coercion, but no solution.

In 2017, possible additions to the permanent workforce are out of the game with the excuse of the stowage liberalization decree. While in other ports they shielded many of their eventuals in Bilbao he fell asleep.

In 2020, the temporary ones support the two-month strike called by the unions, a "Kafkaesque" act since despite being in a job bank, they were still temporary workers hired only for one day. Even so, they carried all the weight and mobilization of the conflict, being the puppets and prisoners of war of both.

After the first ten days of the conflict, the company removes the eventual workers from the equation, ceasing to count on them and canceling the access cards to the facilities and violating the legitimate right to strike. They are fired and quickly reinstated, to suffer a covert punishment of more than a year. They have just enough and necessary, in that time they make no more than 80 days.

When it seemed that the weight of this conflict could not crush them anymore, as soon as 2022 began, the company decided to skip the NO from the union part and used permanent workers to double and do peonage during the week as well (which already they did on the festive days since the summer of 2021). This is the coup de grace to the temporary ones, who if they worked little before, now they can be considered directly fired again.

We point out the double or doubling, which systematically, as it is done in this port, is the silent cancer of the stevedore. He is voluntary in the current agreement in force (but soon to be mandatory), but many times he tries to camouflage himself with the moralistic term “giving service”. Nothing is further from reality, behind the double there is only an economic interest both on the part of the company and on the part of the worker who lends himself to it. Gone are the years when those annual doubles were counted and were the key to incorporations into the permanent staff, a symptom that more personnel were needed.

In any company overtime is done, and sometimes the workers are asked to do it with a certain paternalism so that the business is profitable.

In the port of Bilbao, recent years have been a festival of staff shortages and seeing the order list in red. Although a large part of the staff doubled and all of them worked occasionally, the needs of warehouses and ships were not covered.

Nothing happened, this was only discussed at the foot of the crane and did not transcend.

Isn't this the biggest symptom that more permanent staff is needed to work with more professionalism and be more competitive?

The double, according to the current agreement, is a special day where the workers put in two shift days of 6 hours (12 hours in a row), but they count them as 8+4 in such a way that the company saves paying social security

Art. 11 – Working days

Art. 15 – Special day

The first 20 special days will be economically compensated as established in Annex I, without the right to rest. From the twenty-first day, the economic compensation will be as established in Annex I with the right to a day of rest.

Ignoring the workers' statute where it establishes a maximum of annual overtime, double it is something uncontrolled in the port and if they do it during the week and as a laborer, where are the eventual ones who have been doing this work for so long? For both the social and business sides, the latter always bragged about counting on them and having plans for them.

Wouldn't it be moral to double down so that these temporary workers could at least try to take home a salary? It would be a consequent response from the stevedoring group to this new attack on their eventuals. No longer behind a few union acronyms or slogans, but rather to a personal and solidary responsibility.

How do the temporary workers and their families deal with this situation? In general, with resignation and little hope. It's 14 years of uncertainty and day-to-day survival. After what happened in 2020, some workers have left in search of a better future, others combine with other jobs, others periodically visit psychologists and many others survive month after month in the red and with bank overdrafts .