Workers at the Talgo plant in Rivabellosa (Álava) are living in “uncertainty” about the situation of the company after the Sánchez government decided to veto the public takeover bid (OPA) launched by the Hungarian group Magyar Vagon, citing the protection of strategic interests and national security. Without asking whether the OPA should be authorized or not, they are demanding an industrial plan for the company “as soon as possible” so that the viability of the company and jobs are guaranteed.
“We want a short and long term industrial plan; in the short term, to be able to continue the manufacturing that we are currently doing, and in the long term, so that the factories continue to remain in Spain,” says the representative of CCOO Euskadi in Rivabellosa, Kepa Alcaine, who announces that they will request a meeting with the Basque Government to ask for help in the process and guarantee their jobs and those of the auxiliary industry.
Talgo’s Basque factory employs 700 workers out of the 2,500 that the company has in Spain. All the wagons are manufactured in Rivabellosa. “Currently, the Alava factory no longer has the capacity to take on the company’s entire workload,” says Alcaine, a workload that guarantees employment until 2030. “To grow, it needs multiple investments, because if you have work but you can’t do it, it’s no use,” he says. In fact, some of the wagons manufactured in Rivabellosa are transferred to the Madrid factory to finish them, because the Alava factory no longer has capacity. Therefore, “finding ourselves now without an investor means being in total uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going to happen now, but… and from 2030? When will the workload end?” he asks.
Alcaine recalls that the workers have not welcomed the Hungarian takeover bid very favourably either: “It is no use if a Hungarian group buys us and the factory, in four or five years, when they know how to manufacture, disappears from Spain.” That is why he insists that what is now needed is “an industrial plan that guarantees work and that guarantees the Spanishness of the factories”, and he has asked for the involvement of the company, the central government and the Basque government, for which he will request a meeting with the new Minister of Industry, Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Mikel Jauregi.
“I don’t think the Basque Government wants this company to disappear, because it’s not just the 700 permanent workers, there are also temporary workers and the entire auxiliary industry,” he recalls. “And even less so when it’s a company with a workload.”
The truth is that the Basque Government has repeatedly stressed the importance for the Basque economy of Talgo maintaining a manufacturing plant in Alava, which represents a commitment to local suppliers and companies in its surroundings. “The Talgo plant in Rivabellosa constitutes one of the poles of social and economic revitalization” of the Basque Country, said President Urkullu during one of the visits he made to the plant.
