Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'The fraud of this non-transfer of commuter rail services'

The week has started with a bang. The transfer of Cercanías to the Generalitat (Catalan regional government), as we had been told, will no longer happen. The unions have forced the new Cercanías operator to be a subsidiary of Renfe, a new company within Renfe that will provide workers with the same collective bargaining agreement.

Renfe will hold the majority stake in the new company, while the Generalitat (Catalan Government) will control the board of directors and, in practice, the management: it will hold the presidency and the casting vote. Specifically, the new company will hold a majority stake in Renfe Viajeros (50.1%), while the Generalitat (Catalan Government) will retain 49.9% of the company. Renfe will have four directors appointed by Renfe, four by the Generalitat (Catalan Government), and the presidency of the board will be proposed by the Generalitat. This means that the workers will continue with the same company and will not lose their collective bargaining agreement.

This is a substantial change from the agreement to transfer Cercanías to the Generalitat, because Cercanías remains under the control of Renfe, not the Generalitat.

What kind of agreement did the PSOE sign with ERC? If, at the first hurdle, as it involves a union demand, they can no longer honor their word, this isn't an agreement, it's a fraud. The PSOE, which is now in power, has been wobbly in the face of the strikes, or perhaps, deep down, it's fine with it. Where was the problem? As if hundreds of thousands of workers hadn't been transferred to the Generalitat over the decades.

Yes, last night it was the train drivers' strike has been called offscheduled for this morning and the following days.

And yet, this hasn't prevented trains from being canceled, with lines R1, R3, and R4 being delayed due to a train problem in Plaza Catalunya—a daily occurrence. Some commuters complained on TV3 that this was a covert strike.

Be that as it may, this non-transfer is a fraud, both in the letter and spirit of the agreement. If any transfer was justified, it was this one. It's not that the trains have to run better just because they're managed by the Generalitat, but we have three certainties: those managed by the State are a disaster (which is now being corrected), the trains managed by the Generalitat work, and tonight's decision has put the corporate interests of a few thousand workers above the general interest. This is unbecoming of the huge amount of money we pay with our taxes.

Today, in his column, Francesc Canosa remember some words of Enric Prat de la Riba from 1914:

"We didn't create the Commonwealth to have a larger provincial government, nor to give the Catalan soul a small, subordinate, secondary administrative body: a province... We all want a state body for Catalonia." More than a century later, this train is still late.

Good morning.