At the press conference to present Consum's results, held yesterday in Valencia, ten directors, members of its governing council, appeared. And at that table, two of them were women. They are Lourdes Brugera, director of logistics, and María Isabel Moreno, director of administration, members of the board of directors.
The cooperative indicates that it is promoting the incorporation of more women to positions of responsibility. Currently, 61% of managerial positions in stores are already occupied by women and in 2021, 401 workers were promoted, of which 64% were women. But they warn of a gap, because 73% of its workforce are women. "We want them to be more," they explain from the company.
With this feminization of the workforce -common in the supermarket sector and in commerce, in general-, company sources assure that shift changes or work permits have been granted for those employees affected by painful rules for a long time. "It is not something new for us, we have been dealing with these situations for a long time," they respond.
They are pending approval of the fourth Equality Plan and their collective agreement agreed with the unions includes, among others, the maternity protection protocol -for example-, to which 390 people have taken advantage in 2021, 2.94% of the template.
This is what is being talked about these days in Congress, and in the media, since the future Abortion Law that is currently in draft includes the possibility of sick leave due to severe menstrual pain, so that women with this medical condition stay at home or flexible working hours. A note "under discussion" in the Executive, with statements by Vice President Nadia Calviño assuring that the Government "is not going to take any measure that stigmatizes women."
In 2021, it added 826 jobs, reaching a workforce of 18,212 workers, a growth of almost 5%, a figure that Durich brandished to explain that "personalized sales is higher than the growth in sales for new retail services, because when sales don't grow much we keep people".
Self-service checkouts are installed in 87 stores, but "they have not replaced people. They are to speed things up," explains Durich.
In 2021 they have approved a new sustainability strategy that is also reflected in the future solar farm, in collaboration with Endesa, which will guarantee them 60% of their energy supply. Currently, 98.5% of the energy consumed by the cooperative comes from renewable sources.
With this installation they hope to obtain "stability in the energy price" and sell at "more reasonable prices, if the energy continues at higher prices," the general director, Juan Luis Durich, assured yesterday at the presentation. He also added that "our own consumers demand that we also fight for our environment."
As for the 'green' dogma that prevails in the market, Consum puts the references in its ECO range at 330, "all our citrus fruits have IGP (protected geographical indication) and all our fresh meat has the animal welfare certificate", he added .
Within that same policy, they have reduced emissions by 1,590 tons; 25% of the material in the shopping baskets comes from recycled marine waste; the bags are reusable and compostable in the sale of fresh products and 11.6% of own-brand plastic containers are recycled.
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