Home help service workers in Estepona take to streets to demand improved working conditions

Home help service (SAD) workers in Estepona marched through the town centre on Saturday to raise awareness of the job insecurity they face and to call for improvements in their profession. Mariví Romero Ruiz, president of the SAD workers' committee, told SUR that "we can't take it anymore". "Following the murder of a colleague this year in Galicia and of another colleague in Ronda, we decided to take to the streets and protest against the chronic precariousness of SAD's work."

The president also detailed other problems faced by the workers: "Low salaries, split shifts, overwork with fragmented and endless working hours that prevent us from reconciling work and family life, a lack of resources, extreme physical conditions, little social appreciation of an essential service and exposure to situations of violence without anyone protecting us."

In Estepona, most of the workers have part-time contracts, many with salaries below the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI), "and marathon working hours that are detrimental to their health and wellbeing". "We go blindly into the homes without knowing what we are going to find. We want to make it visible that we are an essential service, but we are not treated as such," Ruiz added.

The contracting of people with 200- and 300-hour courses when, according to the agreement, they should have an intermediate level vocational training course or, failing that, a certificate of professionalism authorised and approved by the Junta de Andalucía is another of the things they condemn.

In addition, the workers are demanding a pay rise. "The company is so clever that it raises the contribution bases so that social security will see that we are paid above the minimum wage, but the reality is that we are paid below it: they tell us that the regularisation will be done at the end of each year. The 2024 adjustment was paid in July because we claimed it at the time, but some of us have not been paid in full, so we have to go back to the company to claim what we are entitled to for doing our work."

"We are asking for a wage improvement that allows us to live in dignity; job stability with decent contracts and a reduction in temporary work and a full working day. We are also asking for adequate resources, training, equipment and PPE, as well as professional recognition and social appreciation of the work we do," Ruiz said.

They also demand a real risk assessment to be carried out in the homes they serve. "We want real security measures, prior information on each home and adequate protocols for action."

In Estepona there are around 207 home helpers, the majority of whom are women, caring for some 730 people. "We carry out essential work with all of them so that they can stay in their homes with dignity and adequate care," the president added.

Privatisation of SAD

Estepona town hall formalised a new contract in February 2024 with the joint venture OHL Servicios-Ingesan, for four years and with the possibility of extending for a further year for a value of 1.7 million euros, according to municipal sources. The SAD workers are also calling for the remunicipalisation of the service "to guarantee its public and transparent management, because every time the company changes, it is the workers who suffer the uncertainty, the changes in conditions and the loss of rights".

It is worth noting that approximately eight years ago the local council decided to stop managing this service and it passed into private hands. First it was Arquisocial who was in charge of its management and currently the aforementioned OHL Servicios-Ingesan.