​De la Encina meets with port workers' trade union representatives

• The President of PE remarks that "A large part of the Spanish economy depends on the legal certainty of stowage"
• UGT and CCOO are demanding "responsibility and a sense of State" and the parties should set aside the electoral campaign in the voting

04-02-2019 (Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport). Salvador de la Encina, President of the public body Puertos del Estado (hereinafter, PE), met today with port workers' trade union representatives of UGT, Francisco Núñez and José Manuel Lubián, and CCOO, José Pérez and José Jorge García.

One of the issues discussed was the substantial progress made last week by the Council of Ministers regarding stowage. The trade union representatives congratulated themselves for this step and thanked De la Encina for his involvement over the years, and through different positions of public responsibility such as the Presidency of the Development Committee of the Congress of Deputies, in this process to grant legal certainty for the collective and port activity as a whole.

"The satisfaction of the Royal Decree Law approved last Friday by the Council of Ministers chaired by Pedro Sánchez is shared with the port workers' trade unions," De la Encina maintained, adding that "nevertheless, there is still a crucial step that the political groups must be aware of".

In this regard, UGT appealed for "the legal reform of stowage to be validated by the Congress's standing committee, for which the political parties must act responsibly and with a sense of State."

The representatives of CCOO showed their "concern to ensure that the parties leave aside the electoral campaign to take forward a formal and binding agreement on which there should be unanimity in Congress beforehand."

The President of PE explained that it is not a problem of stowage "but a problem that could affect companies and workers throughout the country" given the close interaction of the various productive sectors with the logistics and distribution chains that pass through the ports of general interest.

"It is time for responsibility, reasonableness and common sense," he said. "These qualities have made it possible for unions, employers and governments to reach an agreement, and it is these qualities that I demand from the political parties to give legal certainty to an activity on which a large part of the Spanish economy depends", concluded the President De la Encina.