Vicente Lafuente, president of the Metallurgical Business Federation of Valencia (Femeval), assures that about six months ago they alerted the Valencian Government that “we were concerned about the lack of definition of Ford” and, in general, the situation of the automobile in Europe because it was going through “ a tremendous lack of definition.” He predicts now, as he already predicted then, that “significant distortions are going to be generated both at the labor and economic levels.”
The sector, which brings together 8,500 companies and 35,000 workers, has joined hands with the Automotive and Mobility cluster (AVIA), of which both Ford and PowerCo tractor units are part, to establish a "unit of action facing situations that affect vehicle, component and mobility manufacturing companies" and, by extension, the entire metal industries and their entire value chain. Yesterday both entities met in Valencia after days of concern in the sector following the announcement of the closure of plants such as the recent one of Thyssenkrupp, in Sagunt; or those of Rhenus Automotive, SAAS or LEAR in Almussafes.
The business community in the sector is concerned about what is happening and so are the unions. That is why CCOO-PV is meeting today, as confirmed by the union, with the Department of Industry, following the closure of Thyssenkrupp, to address this and other problems and with the aim of proposing to the Valencian Government the creation of a Roundtable the Valencian Automotive Industry in which all agents are represented. More than a year ago, Compromís already asked in Les Corts for an autonomous panel for the automotive sector to have an instrument with which to "continue promoting" the development of this industrial sector in the Valencian economy.
“It is not a question of what happens in Sagunt, nor of Almussafes, there are more levels of adaptation because this is not a local issue, it is a sectoral issue and that is what we want to convey to the councilor,” explains Juanjo Picazo, General Secretary of Industry at CCOO-PV. CCOO-PV would sit at that table, but also the other unions with sectoral representation, in addition to the employers' associations and associations such as Femeval, Avia, the Quimacova association or AVEP, the Valencian Association of Plastics Employers.
Picazo considers that this is the “opportune moment” to also talk about auxiliary companies in the automotive sector, looking for reindustrialization plans in a period of time, that of the transition to electric, which “is not going to be short” and in which considers “we cannot have job losses and not worry about the qualifications of workers.”
In this line he agrees with Femeval, whose president assures that the Valencian Government can collaborate by providing plans to search for new foreign markets, training for the relocation of people, to change the training of staff or research into new market niches so that companies reorient their production. “Something has to be done, what we cannot do is sit idly by,” says Lafuente.
And Cristina Plumed, president of the Camp de Morvedre Business Association (ASECAM), speaks along the same lines, and although she observes the situation with concern, she remembers that a relocation is not taking place. “I think that industries after the arrival of PowerCO can better defend staying in this territory,” she says, while placing emphasis on the training of staff.
A concern that he has already expressed on other occasions in these same pages because, as he assures, it affects many aspects. “Here we owe what we need: robotics, industrial maintenance and specialization in metallurgy, but there is a lot of rigidity in the studies. “With the automotive sector we have to make a very important transformation and we have to adapt, so we need the system to have less rigidity and bureaucracy,” he adds.
