Ibiza’s Construction Sector hardest hit by the transport strike

At the moment, the amount of this aid is unknown, but the sector warns of the need for it to arrive “directly and immediately”. This is what the president of the Transporters Association from Pimeef, José Raya, says, who assures that it is of the “utmost” concern. They will meet again with the Govern on Monday find out in detail the amount of money they will receive, as “it depends on each company or self-employed person and the work they do”. Raya, whose company works on the mainland, explains that “there is less and less transport on the roads, so the delay in the arrival of goods is increasing”. The worst thing, he adds, is the uncertainty. “You have to wait until 10 o’clock at night to see if you are going to be able to embark or not”. Even so, he confirms that there will be no shortages in the Pitiusas. “The perishable goods will arrive to the islands, but materials will not arrive in the same way. In fact, half of it has already fallen by the wayside,” he says. As for the economic losses that the sector is facing, Raya says that we will have to wait to calculate them. “January and February are always weak months, but in March everything starts to pick up. This year will not be the same because of the rise in fuel prices and because we are not shipping as much as we would like,” he laments. For their part, the unions warn that the workers should not support the strike, but the employers remind them that “the drivers are colleagues and we will not leave them stranded”.

Construction Sector

One of the industries most affected by the stoppages is the construction sector. The president of the Builders and Derivatives Association of Ibiza and Formentera, Consuelo Antúnez, explains that “until a few days ago the goods were arriving fine, but now there are starting to be problems because there are things that are not arriving“, she points out. Antúnez points out that this situation causes delays in the construction sector works that are underway, which she hope “will be temporary”. In this sense, the president of the Directors and Managers of Spanish Hotels Association of the Balearic Islands, Alicia Reina, recognizes that, although the extent of the stoppages is still unknown, “there are materials ordered that are not arriving”. A situation that is especially worrying given the time of year. With less than a month to go before the start of the tourist season, “we are in a hurry to open and what we are doing is modifying the options: if we had ordered one type of material and it does not arrive, we change it for another,” she says. Reina says that the hotel sector is used to getting around problems, which is why they are “positive”, and assures that they will open the hotels “against all odds”.

Pimeef

As well as the construction sector, this situation also affects other sectors, although to a lesser extent. Pimeef anticipate that the stoppages will leave some products under stocked on the supermarket shelves on Ibiza from today. “They will be very specific shortages in products such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants or zucchini,” explains the president, Alfonso Rojo. This is due, he adds, to the fact that the central markets, such as Mercabarna or Valencia, are not receiving fresh produce in the usual quantities. Almeria is not working at the same level either, but it is balanced with producers from Murcia, Tarragona or Valencia. “It is probable that there are certain products that can double in price due to the lack of supply”, he points out, while clarifying that “if normally a hundred trailers enter Mercabarna, now four or five do”. Rojo reminds us that this is not a strike, but rather a one-off stoppage and insists that “we can’t talk about a shortage of supply”. He also reiterates that the Ibizan countryside is supplying customers without any problems. For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.