Privatisation and the retirement of 27 per cent of the workforce: key factors in the changes to Torremolinos’s waste collection services

The PSOE believe the plan will lead to redundancies following the closure of the municipal company Litosa, which is currently responsible for these tasks.

PSOE councillor Jorge Padilla said that the documentation in this case explicitly includes "redundancy scenarios" and, specifically, maintains that, according to the technical study, "the equivalent workforce required is clearly smaller than the current one".

At the same time, he drew attention to the figures in this contract: these, he claimed, have risen from an estimated 12 million a year to nearly 17 million, over a period of ten years. According to the councillor, this represented “a financial burden on the town for over a decade, whilst uncertainty surrounded the workforce”.

The PSOE is demanding clarification on how many workers could be considered surplus, as well as genuine guarantees of full staff transfer. “The documentation is unclear and paints a picture that contradicts what has been said publicly. If, with the current workforce, we cannot achieve a minimum level of efficiency, it will be impossible to do so without laying off dozens of workers,” the councillor claimed.

However, the government team denied the allegations outright and criticised the “obvious intention to cause alarm”, or the “complete lack of understanding” of the process. In this regard, the council said that no redundancies are envisaged. “The tender specifications are clear: the successful bidder must have sufficient staff at all times, maintain job security and fully respect the staff’s employment rights,” it said.

The only staff departures recorded, the town hall said, are due to other reasons and relate to projected retirements over a ten-year period. According to municipal sources, these will affect 27 per cent of the workforce between 2025 and 2034, based on current estimates. “Any lower figure in the contract’s overall calculation is due to these retirements, not to planned redundancies,” the council said.

Currently, there are 330 people on Litosa’s payroll, of whom almost 60 are on sick leave or are not currently available for work, according to the town hall.

On the issue of staff, it referred to the conditions laid down for recruitment and the express requirement for subrogation on the basis of "ensuring job security". The council also pointed out that Article 44 of the workers’ statute and the collective agreement itself set out the relevant safeguards in these processes.

“The tender protects the current workforce, guarantees their continued employment and provides for an orderly transition to a more modern and efficient service through the natural phasing out of vacant posts, not through redundancies. Workers are not made redundant: posts are phased out when they become vacant,” the council said.

Another key factor regarding the future of jobs lies in the modernisation of the service, particularly the shift from rear-loading to side-loading and the mechanisation of certain tasks, which, the council said, "will enable the organisation to be streamlined".

The local government highlighted its commitment to dialogue ahead of implementing a change in management model, through discussions held with the company, the workers and their trade union representatives. This, the council explained, has made it possible to “promote and reach an agreement on a collective agreement that had not been updated for years”.