Labor and Social Security inspectors have joined, as of yesterday, the protests already initiated this week by their colleagues, the deputy inspectors, in order to demand from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MTAS) a series of improvements to both the working conditions of officials and the inspection system itself, which they consider deficient, lacking in material and personnel to guarantee an effective public service.
Workers throughout Spain locked themselves in their workplaces yesterday to put pressure on the Ministry. This is what the two officials who work at the Casa del Mar did, following the example of their colleagues who proceeded in the same way on Monday and Wednesday of this week. Before proceeding with the lockdown, the two inspectors from Lanzarote summoned the media to make public the demands of the sector and to show solidarity with the requests of the deputy inspectors. At the doors of the Casa del Mar, Juan Gómez Arbós, accompanied by his workmate Javier Peña Pérez, read a three-page statement detailing the labor situation of the sector, in addition to the serious shortcomings of the labor inspection system itself.
The Ministry of Labor will not have much time to put an end to the conflict, because the group, supported by the Union of Labor and Social Security Inspectors and the Progressive Union of Labor Inspectors (UPIT), has threatened to call a 24-hour strike on June 21, with a concentration at the doors of the Ministry in Madrid. If the MTAS "does not sit down to negotiate and does not urgently provide a concrete solution to the problems raised, we will be forced to toughen, after the summer, these pressure measures," the statement reads.
After the imminent review of more than 3,000 applications for regularization of immigrants that the inspectors and deputy inspectors of Lanzarote will have to face as a result of the recent process of legalization of foreigners, the professionals of the sector are tearing their hair out at the enormous amount of work they have to do with the scarce material and human resources they have. Thus, on the Island only two inspectors and two deputy inspectors work, and they have to validate some 3,200 files. If we add to that the day-to-day work, which cannot be neglected either, because the system would be paralyzed and the number of irregularities could skyrocket, it is clear that on the Island of the Volcanoes the number of inspectors and deputy inspectors is clearly insufficient.
