The workers of Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios, a company awarded the maintenance of the electricity networks "in most of the Canary Islands", according to the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) union, will go on strike on July 15 and 18.
The strike responds to the "unjustified dismissals" of about thirty employees in what the union considers a "covert persecution" of workers' representatives, as well as the "blocking of collective bargaining" by the company, according to the statement sent to the media by the aforementioned organization, which blames the new management.
For the Secretary of Trade Union Action of the Federation of Industry of CCOO Canarias, Juan Pablo Santana, the strike "may have repercussions" on the electricity service of the islands and especially in Lanzarote, where Cobra provides services on a "exclusive" basis, so if a breakdown occurs from July 8 to 11, "there is no one" to attend to it.
Santana warns that "that can affect tourism" and that it would be "counterproductive", but explains that "we cannot do anything if the company even evades the Canarian Labor Court", one of the reasons they give to support the strike.
The union representative denounces that "it was a complete surprise" to see how "systematically" "Canarian, qualified and experienced" workers were dismissed and replaced by others from the Peninsula, mostly from Alicante, "where the new managing director of the company also comes from".
For Santana, it is not about preventing the access of workers because of their origin, but "what we have seen is the opposite: Canarian workers are fired for being Canarian, and without taking into account that we are in an Autonomous Community with more than 30 percent unemployment".
ACN Press
