Regional firefighters insist that it is necessary to hire seven or eight more firefighters per park

2023-12-08 18:48:00

They have formally responded to the Xunta’s latest proposal and only accept one point: the two days of their own affairs

08 dic 2023 . Updated at 5:49 p.m.

Los regional firefighters on strike have sent a written response to the proposal that Xunta and councils, members of the provincial consortia that manage the 24 Galician regional parks, made them at Monday’s meeting. The group rejects three of the four points put on the table.

One of them is the offered increase of one cash for each park. The regional firefighters point out that it is very far from their proposal. This goes through have four or five professionals per shift“to guarantee the safety of emergency intervention teams”, what would require, they calculate a minimum hiring of seven or eight personnel for each center of work. That is, compared to the 24 incorporations proposed by the Administration, the strikers demand between 168 and 192.

Regional firefighters simulate burning themselves to death to denounce the treatment of the Xunta and the Provincial Councils

The voice

About him salary increase offered, which would mean adding on average about 2,200 gross euros to the annual salary, they criticize that it would be in exchange for the firefighters assuming the performance of 158 hours per year above their official working day, which would not be charged as overtime, but would be charged to that rise. “Would 1,300 more liquid euros per year for an extra month of work», they calculate.

“The only thing they are offering is work more overtime to make up for the lack of staff, but charging them even below the value of the ordinary hour. Therefore, they are not talking about increasing the salary, but rather that the worker assumes a greater hourly load than he is entitled to, charging that excess hours at a value of up to 50% below the ordinary hour value», they argue.

As an example, they make a calculation for professionals in the province of Ourense, who currently have the highest average salaries, and who would be the ones who would notice the least increase when it comes to equalizing salaries throughout Galicia. They point out that for a firefighter from Ourense the current ordinary hour would be 14.64 euros. In exchange for doing 158 hours, they would increase their annual payroll by almost 1,470 euros, which would leave the value of each of those hours at 9.25 euros. «something totally illegal», they say.

Regional firefighters and Administration resume negotiations with a proposal to equalize salaries throughout Galicia

The voice

Although it was one of the collective’s demands, they also rejected the offer of move to an official schedule of 1,642 hours per year, instead of the current 1,800. On the one hand, they decry having to add the commitment to complete the annual day up to 1,800 hours, in exchange for the offered salary increase. On the other hand, they remember that with the recent Government agreement between PSOE and Sumar, this will be the working day that is progressively implemented for all workers (37.5 hours per week), while the day of public administration personnelto which they have joined, goes to 35 hours per week. “With no agreement between the parties, the schedule of 1,642 hours per year will be the worst of the scenarios in which we firefighters will soon be, due to the imposition of the new working hours from the state level”, they argue.

The only point that the professional group accepts is the offer to give the staff two 24-hour days of personal affairsequivalent to the six eight-hour days of other public administration workers.

The councils see the demands of the firefighters as excessive

Writing

Faced with all this, the strike committee makes a progressive proposal to reduce the workload and proposes an increase in the number of personnel per park “in order to achieve basic staffing levels that allow for the protection of the minimum services that citizens need.” The proposal does not include the salary issue, since the striking firefighters link it to the prior preparation of a job evaluationwhich analyzes tasks and functions and determines what the remuneration should be for each position.

Filed in: Strike