“I wish he manages, but I see it difficult: we start from two very remote positions and they barely leave us five hours of margin to negotiate.” The reflection is from Pedro Morán, a worker for 16 years in the waste collection service of Madrid and current spokesperson for the Urban Sanitation Section in CCOO, which watches over its sector. Both he and the 1,800 employees in subcontracted private companies for the cleaning of the streets live critical days: the disagreement with the awarding about the working conditions of the workforce has led to convene a strike, whose starting gun is scheduled tonight. It will leave the city with minimal services until next notice, and only a radical turn could avoid it in the next few hours.
Cespa (Ferrovial), FCC, Value (Sacyr), OHL, ACCIONA and URBASER are the six companies that, since 2021, manage the three cleaning lots in which the areas of Madrid are distributed. Its representatives have called again to negotiate the unions that convene the strike, workers commissions and RSU Madrid professional sector. They meet this Monday afternoon, in a search for desperate to stop protests. The meeting will take place from 17.30 at the Hotel Ilunion on Avenida de Pius XII (Chamartín), and Morán does not rule out that the conversations are extended even, until the strike begins at 23.00 hours. All part of a choral conflict.
A salary increase that appeals the changes in the CPI (consumer price index), the consolidation of workers who have been chaining temporary contracts for years, putting a preserve at the night shift, creating a new specifications of working conditions that modify the current agreement … the claims that have led the unions to paralyze the strike, as they explain themselves, are “basic issues” Entrepreneurs. “On Friday [18 de abril] We accept to reduce some of our conditions because we do not want to get on strike, but until today we will not know how much it will be possible, ”says CCOO spokesman.
For example, Morán explains that his initial intention was to demand an increase of 5% in their salaries, but agree to lower their standards at a percentage point, up to 4%. “Less is impossible”, Clarifies the union representative. The salary increases proposed by the employer for the next few years were“ insufficient. ”Always according to workers commissions, the cleaning companies proposed to freeze the payroll in 2025 and gradually upload them: 1% by 2026 and up to 2% in 2027. The following year, in theory, it is when it is time to renew the agreement for the service.
“We do not want to earn more money, but to recover what we lost with inflation,” says Pedro Morán. The CPI shot from 2021 following factors such as the expansive monetary policy that was deployed in front of the pandemic or the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, where supply problems intensified and ended up raising prices. Likewise, another of its requests is to control the concatenation of night shifts for the same worker, better distributing a time section contrary to the usual rhythm of life.
“We know about people who have spent almost a whole week in this turn and it is something that disrupts. It is paid more, but not at the level of other sectors in which the night of nightlife becomes 500 euros,” he adds, setting in about 200 those that acquires more a cleaning employee who works one night in Madrid. To achieve all these objectives, they look at the meeting this afternoon, although they say they will not know if their proposals will have been taken into account.
In the subcontracts they deposit almost all the responsibility, although they launch a message to the Madrid City Council: “It is not their direct competence and it does not correspond to them to negotiate, but we believe that everything would be easier if the Consistory would mediate to solve the conflict.” So far, the local administration has announced minimum 50% services for home containers. That is, yellow, brown or orange. With this measure they will be emptied and will replace every 48 hours, dividing the work so that one day they are executed in 12 of the 21 districts of the capital and the next, in the rest.
The pairs (Tuesday 22, Thursday 24, Saturday 26 and Monday 28) will be collected in the center, Arganzuela, Salamanca, Chamartín, Fuencarral-El Pardo, Chamberí, Moncloa-Aravaca, Carabanchel, Usera, Linear City, Vicálvaro and San Blas-Canillejas. The odd (Wednesday 23, Friday 25 and Sunday 27), will do the same in nine other districts: Retiro, Tetuán, Latina, Puente de Vallecas, Moratalaz, Hortaleza, Villaverde, Villa de Vallecas and Barajas. If the strike is lengthened, the City Council will maintain this criterion. Will they do it? Morán draws his conclusions: “It will depend on what happens today. We We want to reach an agreement, but if there are no concessions we will have a strike for a while”
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