The conflict between the group of workers of the closed Cuca cannery and the new shareholder Grupo Garavilla is increasingly further from a negotiated settlement. The clash concerns the move of the Cuca factory and its equipment, in Spain, from the town Vilaxoán to O Grove. Last week, the new owners removed the machinery at early dawn, aided by the presence of more than thirty policemen in five riot police vans.
Doubled patrols by the workers and even stone blocks placed at the gate of the factory to hinder in and out-going transport were unable to prevent the success of the police operation.
Last week Friday, at one o’clock in the morning, when the rain raged in the town, the police mounted a very well designed operation to prevent the women workers on guard-duty to alert others, before the trucks with equipment had left the factory on their way to O Grove.
With great stealth five vans of riot police cut traffic within a hundred meter radius around the processing plant. One of the vans was parked right outside the guard house where three female workers were guarding the factory. An officer told them they could do nothing because they were completely surrounded.
The women tried to telephone to warn others over what was happening, but none of the phones worked, a technique often used by security forces.
“It happened so fast. Within a matter of about three minutes, they blocked the exit of the guard house, removed the stones we had place before the factory gate, opened the gate and the trucks began to leave. We soon realized and accepted that no one could have helped us†said one of the workers who was on duty that night.
“It was very hard for us to see the machines go. We felt that they were part of our life,†said one of the workers who has held a position in the production at the cannery for more than thirty years.
In the afternoon, workers held their weekly assembly at the headquarters of the CCOO union where they analyzed the company statement, and the event which occurred in the early morning.