A woman serves customers in a bar, in a file image. /
The CC OO and UGT report, presented this Wednesday and to be delivered to the Labor Inspectorate, shows that four out of six employees work on a temporary basis and up to 11% carried out their activity without a contract
More than half of the hotel workers in the Region of Murcia state that they receive non-payroll wages, that is, they are paid in black for doing part of their work. This is reflected in a survey of 1,150 professionals by the CC OO and UGT unions in a report prepared on the situation of the sector, which was presented this Wednesday.
From the answers offered by the workers, among whom there are members of both organizations who earn a living in the sector, it can be concluded that up to 53% of the staff would have received money without declaring it, which, as this study warns, «represents a fraud against workers, Social Security and the Tax Agency». Even 11% of those interviewed claim to have worked without a contract.
Image of the press conference this Wednesday to present the report. /
Both the general secretary of CC OO in the Region, Santiago Navarro, and the general secretary of UGT in the Region, Antonio Jiménez, accompanied by the federal and regional officials of the sector, denounced the “enormous existing shadow economy” in the Murcian hospitality industry, at the same time that they attacked the “blockade” by the sectoral employers to agree on a new agreement after more than a decade without renewing it.
The work carried out by the service federations of both unions will be handed over to the Labor Inspectorate, as will the names of the non-compliant companies, as announced. The Minister of Tourism, Marcos Ortuño, also received the document in hand, minutes before presenting it, in a meeting to analyze this problem.
Likewise, they affect the prevailing precariousness, “with miserable salaries and false partiality.” In this sense, the official average of performance is barely 28.8 hours per week in terms of the work day by contract, when in reality the average of real recognized hours rises to 42.6 hours, which represents a gap . So the partiality in Hospitality is close to 30% and doubles the rate of the set of activities. And the female even more so (36-37%). In addition, by virtue of the types of contracts, 41% of employees indicate that they work on a temporary basis, compared to 48% of permanent ones.
For all these reasons, given what was experienced in the sector with the pandemic, the fraud to which the unions refer has had “serious economic damage in the perceptions of the unemployment benefit of workers who have been included in ERTE, being seriously affected 34% of the people surveyed, receiving an internal benefit of 300 euros».
Grievance with other provinces
In terms of salary, the report also includes the comparative grievance for workers in the sector in the Region of Murcia, with respect to those in neighboring provinces -Alicante and AlmerÃa- “which have much higher economic conditions.” And many professional categories already earn below the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI). A gap of between 2,000 and 3,000 euros per year that can be seen both in minimum wages and in higher categories.
With regard to labor rights in terms of weekly rest, “non-compliance with the same marked in the collective agreement is common”, with 53% who say they suffer it, “resting only one day a week”. In this regard, only 34% claim to enjoy 31 days of vacation included in the collective agreement.
