Unions representing workers at Siemens Gamesa’s Aoiz plant in Spain are organising demonstrations, strikes and meetings with political leaders in efforts to try and halt the closure of the factory.
A round of meetings with political representatives and institutions from Navarra, where the plant is located, have been requested by ELA, LAB, CCOO and UGT.
These meetings include the presidents of the government and parliament of Navarra, the ombudsman and with all political parties in the parliament, ELA said.
In addition, strike days will take place throughout the consultation period between unions and the company, and a demonstration has been scheduled in Pamplona on Saturday 11 July at 6pm local time.
The unions dispute Siemens Gamesa’s economic arguments for closing the plant and said that the workload was guaranteed until September 2021.
ELA said: “We are convinced that we are going to ensure that Aoiz does not close.”
Siemens Gamesa said it had no further comment to make other than what was in the press release announcing the closure.
The company said on 1 July that the factory was no longer competitive in a market environment to produce blades for large turbines.
It said the facility made the SG 3.4-132 model mainly for the Spanish domestic market and was over 200km away from the nearest port making it uncompetitive for global markets.