The former unionist and member of Citizen Alternative Andrés Barreto, who has negotiated "Inalsa's collective agreements for 30 years", does not know "where Francisco Rodríguez Batllori comes from". This is what he declared this Monday during the third day of the Unión trial for the payment of allegedly false invoices by Inalsa and the Arrecife City Council.
According to Barreto, who filed a complaint and took Inalsa invoices to the Prosecutor's Office after the Unión Operation broke out, Batllori "has not participated in any type of Inalsa negotiation" with the workers, nor could he manage, as his defense maintains, training courses for employees, since according to Barreto "these powers were delegated to the Works Council".
Regarding the supposed need to have a consultant on labor matters, as the accused claim, Barreto has been forceful. "Need? What need? Do you know how many advisors there were in Inalsa?", he responded in an exclamatory tone to Plácida Guerra's lawyer, when he asked him how he could know what the councilor's needs were.
"He had all the advice there was and was to be had, and well paid to advise the manager and all of Inalsa", Barreto stressed, referring to the advisors who were officially contracted, and among whom was not Rodríguez Batllori, who between March 2008 and February 2009 charged more than 26,000 euros without a contract.
"It was very defined who negotiated"
In addition, as advisor to the Works Council and responsible for the negotiation on behalf of the workers for decades, Barreto has explained that the alleged tasks that Batllori claims to have carried out were carried out by other people. Thus, he explained that it was "very defined who negotiated" the collective agreement, which was an external law firm, and he also named the person who was in charge of advising on labor matters.
In this point he also agreed with the testimony provided by the Director of Administration of Inalsa, who denied having any record of work done by Batllori, and explained that it was another advisor who was in charge of labor issues.
"They might need a second opinion", insisted Plácida Guerra's lawyer. "If that were the case, they had the advisors they had for that. It wasn't one, it was several", Barreto stressed, who maintained a tense dialectical exchange with the lawyer. "What if he needed to hire another one?" "Ah, and why didn't he?", Barreto ended up responding, referring to the fact that there was no contract signed with Batllori.
"We were surprised and started investigating"
During his statement, Andrés Barreto explained that he became aware of these facts after the Unión Operation broke out, because Batllori appeared in the media claiming that he provided services for Inalsa and for the Arrecife City Council. "We were surprised and started investigating", he said. And the first thing they found was that "the Works Council said that Batllori did not work for Inalsa".
From there, also through the Works Council, he managed to have access to the invoices and decided to take them to the Prosecutor's Office and file a complaint, which was incorporated into the Unión case that was underway. As has happened with another witness from the Inalsa management, most of the defenses have focused their interest on knowing how Barreto had access to those "private" invoices of the company. "It was not necessary to take any paper and steal it. The workers themselves were interested in these things coming out", Barreto responded.
In his defense, Batllori and the rest of the accused linked to Inalsa maintain that the former Canarian councilor provided advice on labor matters, in relation to the collective agreement, and also in the management of training courses. However, Barreto has stressed that in that stage "there was no labor conflict", because the collective agreement was already signed.
Then, in response to questions from the defense, he clarified that there were differences, for example due to overtime, but not "a labor conflict", as it could be that the agreement was being negotiated or breached.
Regarding the training courses that Batllori supposedly managed, Andrés Barreto has also denied it, insisting that in that matter "the company did not even have powers", because "they were delegated to the Works Council".
Regarding the councilor, who in her statement stated that "as a woman" she felt "uncomfortable sitting at the table" with Barreto because he was "very impetuous and disrespectful", the former unionist has stated that Plácida Guerra "hardly spoke at the meetings. She didn't want to know the reality".
