The dock, historically a cradle of resistance and raised fists, has ultimately succumbed to the offices of the Plaza de España. The Coordinadora, that giant that once made the State tremble with a single whistle, has completed its metamorphosis into a sort of right-wing stevedore. No longer are class flags waved; now, statements are drafted with the institutional perfume of Coalición Canaria. Its latest maneuver with the MV Hondius is not a defense of the worker, but a political shield for Fernando Clavijo, executed with the discipline of one who has exchanged the work vest for the suit of an advisor.
The decision to unconditionally support the Government of the Canary Islands against Madrid reveals a calculation of interests that has nothing to do with salt. By demanding ‘consensus’ and ‘coordination,’ the leading union has chosen to act as the regional executive’s border police. It is an alliance of convenience: the stevedores offer social peace and territorial control in exchange for maintaining their status as an untouchable caste under the umbrella of conservative nationalism. The union no longer looks at the employer with suspicion; rather, it sits at the table to decide who enters and who exits the waters of the Canary Islands.
The most egregious aspect of this new order is the explicit renunciation of the street. For an organization that boasts of majority representation in Santa Cruz and Las Palmas to sign a document stating ‘NO (in capital letters in the original) to mobilizations’ is the death certificate of its combative spirit. This right-wing stevedore has discovered that it is more profitable to be the executing arm of administrative paralysis than the engine of protest. By deactivating any attempt at gathering or strike regarding the Hondius matter, the Coordinadora has become the best guarantor of the powerful’s tranquility, using ‘health security’ as a comfortable screen to conceal its political subservience.
The rejection of the ‘interested use’ of the situation by third parties is the peak of cynicism. While they accuse others of seeking profit, they tie their future to that of a Coalición Canaria that uses them as an institutional shock force against the central Government. They have transitioned from strategic strike to military order, demanding personal protective equipment (PPE) while surrendering worker sovereignty to a political agenda prioritizing insular disputes over labor solidarity.
In ports of general interest, the message has been clear: the muscle of the stevedores is no longer at the service of social transformation but of maintaining a status quo where the port is the fiefdom and the union its praetorian guard. This right-wing group at the docks has understood that, in the Canary Islands of 2026, life is better under the protective shadow of the regional Government than in the cold of the barricade. The MV Hondius stays out, but the union remains within the system, more comfortable, more silent, and, above all, more docile than ever before the power of the islands.
