Greater financing of all public services at local, regional and state scale and its direct management by the administration. These two claims have starred in the demonstration that this Sunday has traveled the center of Madrid convened by the Tsunami platform for public services. Formed by social, neighborhood, environmental groups and unions, around 12,500 people according to the organization have criticized what they understand as “mass destruction of human and social rights subject to the commercial logic sponsored by complicit governments of different ideologies.”
The mobilization has begun when the Clock on the Puerta del Sol had already marked 12.00. From the Zero Madrid kilometer, the protesters have directed towards the career of San Jerónimo until they reach the Paseo del Prado. Finally, the protest has ended in the Plaza de Juan Goytisolo, in front of the Reina Sofía Museum, where two hours after the start of the march, seconded by representatives of the PSOE and the PCE, they have read the final statement.
Jorge Neira has been one of the people who has decided to secondary the call. Member of the platform for the remunicipalization of the public services of the Madrid City Council, this gardener hired by a private company that performs its functions in the green areas of the capital has criticized that “political speeches remain in words.” From his point of view, “it must be social activism who is guarantor of greater argument in defense of public services, since progressive policy does not go beyond the holder.”
This Madrid neighbor has stressed that public services are not just education and health, as most of the world can be imagined. “There is much to do a lot: gardening, funeral, sewerage and especially social services, which are always undecided, depend on the municipalities,” he explained.
Neira has also defended the remunicipalization of these services. In his opinion, in this way “you take away an intermediary whose income statement is part of public financing to the detriment of the efficacy and efficiency of that service.” In addition, he considers that “with direct management, the administration has control, not an external company that sometimes does not fulfill the specifications of conditions and that must be supervised, if there is will, which often does not happen.”
Devalue the public, privatize it later
Santiago de la Iglesia, Secretary of Organization of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in Madrid, stressed that direct management of services would also result in better working conditions for workers. “There is unfair competition by the private that favors the loss of rights. It is a deterioration at all levels, both public workers and templates of private companies,” he defended hard.
This trade unionist has reported that “the rulers have been favoring the entry of private companies in the public while degrading services.” And he added: “This is how they justify that there is no other formula that the model of public-private collaboration at the same time reduced by its investments.” He also stressed that if in the Community of Madrid this situation is especially sharpened by the PP policies, “it is because they are favored by laws at the state level that the PSOE has helped to implement.”
Precariousness at university and research
At the height of the Congress of Deputies, Cristina Rodríguez has emphasized “the precariousness suffered by investigators in Spain.” She is president of the Federation of young precarious investigators and among her main complaints is “the instability of the research career, in which professionals have to link poorly paid temporary contracts.” He also criticized that the new higher education law that the regional government intends to approve implies a “brutal cut” that will have an impact on researchers, which “obeys the promotion of private universities.”
Meanwhile, dozens of people around him were chanted slogans such as “Ayuso, clown, you pay you”, “Ayuso privatizes, uni agonizes” and “the teacher fighting is also teaching.” Miguel Príncipe has been one of the protesters who has seconded these songs. Professor and researcher at the Autonomous University of Madrid, has highlighted how teachers are increasingly submitted with greater workload and administrative tasks due to the lack of personnel. ”
Redistribute wealth through public services
Near him was Carmen Esbrí, spokesman for Tsunami for public services and member of the table in defense of public health – white tide. She claims to go outside “because there is no democratic society where the fundamental rights of all people are not covered as equal and justice.” This activist has stressed that “all the intrusion of the private in the public that we see will now have serious consequences in a few years that will affect the newborns to the older people.”
When the head of the demonstration faced Atocha Street, Esbrí has stressed that “public services are the best tool to ensure a redistribution of wealth and a correct cohesion of the population.” Meanwhile, the soundtrack of the moment was none other than songs such as “trimming in health is a criminal act” and “primary care, the most necessary.”
Against the “marketing” of the rulers
Around 2:00 p.m., the hundreds of protesters have filled part of the square in front of the Reina Sofía Museum. There they have kept a minute of silence for Bethlehem, the social worker murdered in Badajoz “for the precariousness” of working conditions, have indicated since the organization. After the unanimous cry “for Bethlehem that is no longer, struggle and dignity,” the reading of a manifesto took place in which the calls have repeated their demands: “Public services are being dismantled by the neoliberal model making them their best business opportunities with a captive clientele and complicit governments of all ideologies since the 80s,” they have begun.
They have also claimed that “public services are a fundamental tool of democracy, heritage of the sovereign people.” Calls have cited the Covid-19 pandemic as a test of the “model failure.” In spite of this, they have added, “governments have maintained the market above health and an obvious submission to business corporations.”
In this way, they have reiterated that “the sole purpose of public services must be the common good and provide efficient and effective services that help, protect and sustain community day to day.” “The privatization of them is an expropriation directed against their legitimate owners, putting the enrichment of elites to the right of the population,” they have continued. Finally, they have claimed that “the governments that we hold the lower classes to those that they do not respect have to get out of their mistakes and apply a tax policy that subsanes the great deficiencies and that goes directly to the public.” “No democratic government can be a merchant agent, they are public employees that are due to their people,” they have ended.
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