Mijas town hall workers to launch 'historic' indefinite strike over job stability
With temporary employment rates nearing 50%, municipal staff vote overwhelmingly to strike for the first time in history, citing frozen negotiations and expired contracts
"We have never seen ourselves like this." These words from Daniel Moreno, president of the Mijas workers’ committee, mark a watershed moment for the municipality.
For the first time in its history, the town hall faces an indefinite strike - one day per month - starting 26 March.
Representatives of the workers committee and the civil servants personnel board met on Tuesday to formally call the strike.
The two main demands of municipal employees concern the approval of the workforce stabilisation and the opening of negotiations regarding the collective agreement (for staff employees) and the regulatory agreement (for civil servants), two documents that are essentially identical and date back to 2011.
“The council approves public employment offers, lets them expire, and does not fill the positions. Employees retire and the posts remain vacant, and in other cases, employment pools have been eliminated in order to hire through the Andalusian employment service (SAE).
The job position catalogue has been modified without genuine negotiation,” explained Moreno, who added that the situation is affecting some public services.
The council said that negotiations with the unions "have not been broken and will not be broken"
Moreno said that the unions have not signed "a single agreement in the 27 months" that this government team has been in office and that "everything is impositions". For its part, the council said that there have been 12 meetings since June and that "the negotiation has not been broken and will not be broken".
They put as proof of willingness the appointment of an official of the council itself as general manager of human resources.
She is the third person to hold this position under the current administration and comes to replace the previous manager, after during their term the municipal employees’ health insurance - recognised in the collective agreement and the regulatory agreement - was not renewed, leaving both civil servants and municipal staff without coverage in the meantime.
Temporary employment rate above 50 %
In terms of stabilisation, the unions put the number of municipal employees at 733, of whom 383 are temporary staff, which places the rate of temporary employment above 50 per cent - almost seven times higher than the legal limit of eight per cent
The workers’ representatives argue that the model negotiated with the previous government team should be maintained and that those affected should become permanent in the position they currently hold, rather than the one they originally entered.
The council, on the other hand, advocates stabilisation through entry-level employment with subsequent internal promotion. The unions refer to the court ruling that annulled the change of criteria approved by the municipal government, while the council maintains that there have been “rulings in both directions” in the courts.
