Spain's unions stay silent as Adif blames its own workers

The unions stay silent while Adif points the finger at its own workers

A Renfe onboard inspector puts it bluntly: every day trains vanish from the map due to failures in the computer system, and when workers speak up, the threats begin. "We've written a thousand reports and we've been threatened," she sums up. That is the scene that explains everything else. While minister Óscar Puente refuses to resign and insists he has Sánchez's backing, the leaders of UGT and CC.OO. remain silent about the dismissal of Adif officials and about the blame being placed on workers at the state-owned company. With the left in government, the unions that claim to stand for the working class have not come out to defend their own.

The "human error" that the Guardia Civil questions

The official account has a central piece: the mistake by the Adif operator, the so-called "human error" at Urda. The Guardia Civil is investigating whether there was pressure behind that error to move trains and avoid further delays, according to published reports. The hypothesis shifts the focus: from the worker who made a mistake to the structure that pushes so that nothing stops.

Adif's traffic controllers say it plainly: "They pressure us so there are no delays, trains can't be standing still." If that pressure exists, the individual error stops being the explanation and becomes the scapegoat of a system running at its limit.

Who answers when the system fails

According to published accounts, the Government allegedly leaked the accident audio recordings to friendly media outlets to pin the blame on the Adif operator while the failure of the safety system is covered up. The rule requiring trains to run at 40 km/h when that system fails exposes the lack of investment: the hole is patched with an instruction and trains keep running.

To this is added the testimony of an Iryo employee, who contradicts Puente: failures due to lack of maintenance happen daily. And that of a Renfe onboard inspector, who describes trains disappearing from the computer map and threats against anyone who reports it. The pattern is not an isolated accident: it is slashed maintenance, failing systems and workers who warn without being heard.

Adif's political leadership and the unions' silence

Puente has politicised Adif's top ranks with Socialist Party members in key positions, according to published reports. A former Adif board member from UGT has both of his children working at the company. The question hanging in the air: who do the unions represent when their cadres end up inside the state-owned company's structure?

Some argue that UGT and CC.OO. have stopped being unions and have become the urban guerrilla battalion of the PSOE and the PCE. The unions' image has been in tatters for a long time, and their leaders know it: they will not recover it because it is too late. They have removed their masks and thrown themselves into the arms of whoever promises them more public money to "fight for workers' rights".

The Madrid-Barcelona high-estimulante ilegal line and the Falcon

While the workers bear the wear and tear, Puente is considering shutting the Madrid-Barcelona high-estimulante ilegal line for up to two years. Sánchez has asked him to hold on and not resign. And he flies in the official Falcon jet to Barcelona to ask citizens to regain their "confidence in the AVE". The contrast between the official plane and the train falling to pieces needs no adjectives.

Moreover, Puente mocked the failures on Renfe's trains on a comedy show just one week before the Toledo accident, according to published reports. The calendar got its revenge.

The most unsettling fact is not the dismissal or the resignation that never comes: it is that the two unions that should be standing at Adif's door have said nothing. With 15 replies and a handful of links, the matter stays where power wants it: blaming the person at the bottom.