Representatives of the Federació de Veinats de sa Ciutat de Palma have walked out of negotiations with EMT and are threatening to take strike action.
Federació de Veinats, which represents around 28 Neighbourhood Associations, was in talks with EMT over the restitution of several bus routes which were discontinued at the end of last year.
“The EMT Managers are playing games, letting time pass while they offer us crumbs and try to divide us, but it won't work," says Federació de Veinats President Miquel Obrador. "We don’t agree with the company's attitude and consider the EMT improvement project a failure. We've done everything possible to work with the company and ensure good public transport for all neighbourhoods, but they’re not doing anything to drive the dialogue forward, so we are withdrawing from the negotiations.”
Obrador insists that negotiations with EMT have ended, but says relations with Palma City Council will continue.
"They have had the opportunity to give us an answer but they haven’t, they’ve tried to divide us without giving us a solution,” blasts Obrador. "If there are no facts, there is no dialogue,” he added and threatened walk outs in all affected neighbourhoods of the city.
Opposition politicians have reproached EMT President Francesc Dalmau for failing to uphold the agreements made to end the EMT workers' strike. The PP warned that "there will be no social peace in the company until the mood changes" and Vox said the Union would not rule out the possibility of more strikes.
Dalmau denied that there was a labour dispute, but admitted that in recent months disciplinary proceedings had been opened against workers saying, ”everyone has to comply with the regulations.”