Clash within the employers' association: Cepyme's executive committee threatens to go to court if Cuerva does not withdraw its reform of the regulations
The internal conflict within the Spanish employers' association is getting worse. Every day that passes, new tensions are emerging. The latest has been the letters that a majority of the members of the executive committee of Cepyme have sent to the president, Gerardo Cuerva, threatening legal action if he does not rectify the decision taken last week to eliminate proxy voting in the elections for the presidency of the employers' association of SMEs.
More than 15 members of the executive committee are calling for the immediate withdrawal of this reform of the internal regulations adopted on February 18. “Otherwise, we reserve the right to take appropriate legal action… including the request for a precautionary measure for the immediate suspension of the aforementioned agreement,” says the letter, which “La Vanguardia” has had access to.
They also demand that the electoral process for the election of a new president be started immediately. This is a full-scale attack on Gerardo Cuerva, who is accused of carrying out “serious irregularities” in the mechanism he adopted for this change in the internal regulations of the organization.
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The Cepyme presidency refutes this argument and defends the legality of the changes introduced last week. Specifically, it points out that what the board of directors approved by majority vote in a free and secret manner must be accepted. Sources close to Cuerva are particularly critical of the fact that the letters mention that the secret vote should only be used for the elections and dismissal of the president, but not for the adoption of decisions in the executive committee and the board of directors. “Sending a letter defending theses and actions against democracy and good governance is difficult to explain,” these sources add.
They also add that the executive committee is a collegiate body of the president and does not have the authority to change internal rules, but is only responsible for day-to-day management.
The crux of the matter is a dispute between the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, who wants to place his own candidate at the head of Cepyme, and the current president of the SME employers' association, Gerardo Cuerva, who refuses to throw in the towel and has announced that he will stand for re-election. Garamendi has not revealed who his candidate will be, but made it clear in a face-to-face meeting with Cuerva that there was no turning back on his decision to place a person he trusted at the head of Cepyme.
Against this backdrop, last week's meeting of the governing bodies was particularly tense, with a tight final vote and warnings of possible appeals for not complying with internal regulations, something that Cepyme's management denies. The issue is that the proxy vote was approved by the board of directors, but without first going through the executive committee; a path that critics consider violates the regulations.
The Cepyme presidency has instead implemented the abolition of the proxy vote in the election of the president because they consider that Garamendi's team is pressuring many delegations to use this mechanism to pass the vote to their candidate. In this way, Cuerva promoted a change in the regulations, which, as his team insists, is on par with the system prevailing in the CEOE, for example, to require in-person voting in the election of the president. An election that must be called in the next few weeks, given that his mandate ends on March 16.
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