SFM workers postpone strikes and will continue negotiations on Friday

PalmThe works council of Mallorca Railway Services (SFM) has decided to postpone the partial strikes and has scheduled a new meeting with the company's management for next Friday to continue negotiating improvements in safety matters.

This was explained by both SFM's manager, José Ramón Orta, and the president of the works council, Ricardo Mas, in statements to the media after their first meeting on Wednesday. Both parties welcomed the opening of this dialogue and gave a positive assessment of the meeting, which took place at the company's headquarters and lasted for nearly three hours. The partial strikes, which were approved last Monday by the workers' assembly and were scheduled to begin this Wednesday, have now been postponed. "For the moment, we have postponed them because we are in negotiations. If this doesn't lead to a real solution with concrete measures, we could resume them at any time," Mas warned. For his part, Orta expressed his willingness to study the document of 48 proposals that the workers' legal representatives have put forward. He acknowledged that some issues, such as improving communication and the traceability of incidents, as well as internal protocols, could be substantially improved. "We want to establish the traceability of incidents, something that isn't currently being done, but we're working on it," he admitted. Another of the workers' main demands, the creation of a traffic safety committee (which they have been requesting for six years), will be established "as soon as possible," the SFM manager promised. The communication of incidents, which until now has been done with an "almost makeshift" method, Mas indicated, should be digitized to improve tracking. "They tell us they're going to work on this," he said confidently. Another of the workers' main demands, the creation of a traffic safety committee—which they have been requesting for six years—will be established "immediately," the SFM manager promised. Orta excused himself by claiming that the two industrial engineers hired in October to set up this safety committee have not yet completed their training period with the company. However, he offered the committee an agreement to temporarily replace them with other SFM technicians until they finish their training. Although he indicated that provisional measures like this "could be an option," the committee president, when asked about it, argued that "the ideal" solution would be for the body to be formed with the professionals who were specifically hired for that purpose. A second meeting

As "it is not the will of the company or the committee for the negotiations to drag on indefinitely," he noted, both parties will meet again on Friday at 10:30 a.m. to continue the discussion. Orta expressed confidence that, by then, SFM management will have been able to study the workers' demands and establish an implementation schedule. "We want to make it clear that we are working hand in hand with the committee to continue implementing improvements in safety and railway operations," he emphasized. Mas acknowledged that the document they submitted to management is "dense" and that, therefore, they need time to study each of the points. "They say they are willing to address many of these points in the future, and others they will study. We will demand concrete measures and revisable deadlines so as not to end up with a 'We'll see.' They must take responsibility on Friday," he stressed. If this were the case, he noted, the committee would be "delighted." If that doesn't happen, he warned, they will keep the assembly's mandate "alive" and could reactivate the partial strikes "at any time."