Tubacex has begun negotiations to lay off 150 workers and apply a temporary adjustment to the rest of the workforce – some 650 – at its plants in Llodio and Amurrio in Alava.

The Basque tuber details the labour adjustment in its two plants in Alava announced a week ago. According to the company, the redundancies respond to structural problems derived from the crisis in the oil and gas industry, its main client; while the temporary employment regulation plan (ERTE) aims to «minimise the consequences of the pandemic in view of the low order book».

The start of negotiations opens a period of 30 days to reach an agreement, a complicated objective given the disagreements of recent months.

The company explains that since July it has «intensively searched for alternatives» to avoid redundancies, either with adjustment measures or with an incentive redundancy plan. The first option was rejected by the unions, and the second has had little response.

In a note, Tubacex insists that oil and gas activity has fallen by 50% in the last five years, and will not recover its previous dynamism given the acceleration of the energy transition and the commitment to renewable sources.

In summer Tubacex already communicated its decision to reduce its labour costs worldwide by 20% to guarantee its «sustainability».

This adjustment has already been carried out in the company’s 20 plants outside Spain, and now -despite the lack of agreement with the unions- it is being implemented in the two plants in Alava.

The Llodio and Amurrio factories, together with a small facility in Cantabria, are the company’s plants in Spain. In them, the losses are around 18 million euros in 2020. Both were already in the red in 2019, although they were lower: 12 million.

Source: Expansión.