"We must not side with the employers or the workers; we must not confront the public sector with the private sector because we are not two sides," defended yesterday the president of the Business Confederation of the Valencian Community (CEV), Salvador Navarro. His speech comes after days of bickering from Podemos and the usual less forceful responses from the business community and in the middle of an act that served in part to reconcile the political class with the company.
Company Day was celebrated in the Valencian Community with an institutional act in Castelló de la Plana - which will be its annual headquarters - attended by President Ximo Puig but also by the Minister of Finance, Arcadi Spain; the Minister of Sustainable Economy, Rafa Climent (from Compromís) and the Minister of Innovation, Josefina Bueno, all related to the field, and a total of 200 attendees.
At the event, the president explained that Company Day tries to value the 375,000 companies and the 360,000 self-employed workers in the Valencian Community, which he described as a "great engine in the shadows", which attracts foreign investment and has led to the current employment record. For Navarro, yesterday was "the fair recognition of the thousands of men and women who every day show their professional, personal and social commitment by raising their business projects, generating economic activity and creating jobs. People, many of them unknown publicly, but indispensable for the development and growth of our Community”.
Puig could not, in this scenario, avoid one of the economic issues of the moment with great political connotations. After presiding over the celebration of Company Day, he criticized Ferrovial's decision, which will move its headquarters to the Netherlands: "The path chosen by this company is not the most reasonable, among other things because it is a company that has become big here. Not all companies are good and not all are bad, and not all workers do it well and not all do it badly," he said.
All this in an atmosphere of tension between the businessmen and the leaders of Podemos. Since the criticism of Juan Roig and Boluda, the Valencian leaders of the purple formation have not lowered their criticism. On Thursday, the second vice president of the Consell and candidate for the Generalitat, Héctor Illueca, insisted that it is small and medium-sized companies, the self-employed, workers, cooperatives and other entities of the social economy that generate wealth and a large part of of employment in the country, and "not the large companies, such as Ferrovial or large stores".
And it is that the departure of Ferrovial has done nothing more than give arguments to the partners of the Socialists in their questioning of the ethics of some businessmen in these times of crisis.
In this context, it is not surprising that Illueca distanced himself from the Company Day approved by the Valencian government of which he is a part last week. "8M or May Day motivates me more than Company Day," he explained at an event held at the Castellón Chamber of Commerce, entitled Ruthless capitalism or economic democracy?
Asked yesterday about the celebration of Company Day in Castelló, the first vice president and leader of Compromís, Aitana Mas, assured that for the Valencian government "companies are important" and that "it will always be at the side" of those that "comply with social responsibility, those that do not generate a wage gap, those that are taxed in our country, companies that respect the environment and labor rights".
