Mercedes’s Commission on Prevention of Occupational Risks (PRL) held its second meeting on 17 April, according to ESK. According to the union, "a number of issues were dealt with, all of them of common sense". But the company continues to avoid facing the greatest difficulty, that is, the social distance of two meters between people".

Osalan acknowledges that Mercedes does not guarantee the distance between workers

On 18 April, the ESK trade union received the report by Osalan, the body responsible for monitoring safety at work, on the relaunch of Mercedes. The report concludes that: "The manual of return to the factory produced by Mercedes is considered sufficient, except for the problem of the distance between workers. It may be necessary to define or develop a procedure, but it takes into account the need for re-incorporation".

ESK will not accept start-up under these conditions

This is what the union has said: "ESK will not support at least any pre-start without organisational studies that manage to move people away from a social distance of two meters by changing touch or reorganizing positions."

He adds that it is incomprehensible to him that the company has not tried to solve the problem during the weeks of cessation of production: (rest) "the measures are secondary, you have to look for that distance between people in one way or another and you have to stress that the company is not willing to change touch or reorganize jobs, but, in order to save time in cleaning tools, it proposes a rotation of four hours per job".

The company wants to start somehow on April 27

ESK explains this as follows: "The company, yes or yes, wants to start on Monday 27, either in agreement with the workers' representatives, or without an agreement. To reach that starting point, it's going to implement a thousand measures, but it's not going to do anything fundamentally, which is the social distance of two meters between people."

ESK calls for an indefinite strike on Mercedes workers

The ESK trade union has indicated that it will observe the production processes and that, together with the other trade unions, they will denounce before the inspection situations that violate the law. But this has its risks to the health of workers: "That takes time and it has to be that production is going on. For this reason, it has offered workers an alternative to protect their health: "Calling for an indefinite strike so that whoever wants can put their health and that of their people before everyone else," he added.

The union believes that taking the strike can mean taking steps towards the distance of two meters from the company, "in terms of the time of retouching and the organization of the jobs". According to the company's response, "of course, we would reconsider the call for a strike", as the union has indicated.