UGT will hold its XIII Ordinary Island Congress this Thursday. At the congress, which will take place at 6:15 p.m. at the Sociedad Democracia de Arrecife, a vote will be held to determine who will hold the General Secretariat of the union on the island. In this sense, the current general secretary, César Reyes, has confirmed this Wednesday that he will present his candidacy again. Currently, Reyes is also a councilor in the Tías Town Hall, after having headed the party's list in the last local elections.
Now, he will try to revalidate his position at the head of the union. "A group of colleagues have decided to stay and present a candidacy for the thirteenth congress, which will take place at the Sociedad Democracia this Thursday. We are going to try to get the support to carry out that transformation of the union," Reyes said on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero.
The general secretary of the UGT in Lanzarote, who first took office in 2007 and was re-elected at the XII congress in 2013, explained that to present his candidacy he must obtain the endorsements of 25% of those summoned. These endorsements "are collected at the time of the opening of the Congress and, once the time determined by the presidency of the Congress has elapsed, they will be presented and submitted to a vote."
Reyes, who has alluded on several occasions to the "process of change" in which the union is immersed at a national level, has pointed out that this is one of the procedures that will change. Thus, he explained that the general secretary of UGT in the Canary Islands, Gustavo Santana, made a proposal "so that the possibility of open voting processes for the election of positions, as well as the limitation of mandates, would be considered in the statutes of the UGT at the state level." "That has been included, the second, and we are waiting for the next few months and according to the UGT regulations we can proceed with these direct votes," he added.
"We are entering into processes of structural change at the level of the confederation, where different federations that make up the UGT will be merged and where three federations will be constituted at the state level from the month of May," Reyes explained, adding that these changes and this "merger" will be applied at different levels, including the island level. The general secretary of UGT in Lanzarote has defended the "transformation" of the union as "necessary", to "respond in the 21st century to the needs not only of workers, but of society in general" and also so that "workers feel more represented by the UGT".
Miguel Barrios Miralles Award Ceremony
After the closing of the XIII Congress, which is scheduled for 8:00 p.m., the Miguel Barrios Miralles Awards for union work will be presented, which this year celebrate their third edition. After a voting process by the members, UGT Lanzarote has decided that on this occasion the award will go, in the collective category, to the members of the UGT-FSP Prisons-Lanzarote Union Section, "for the continuous actions carried out in defense of public employment and the constant denunciation of the working conditions in which the workers of this sector perform their functions, for their active participation in the different bodies of the General Union of Workers and for the excellent results obtained in the last union elections," the union said.
In the individual category, the award will be for Tomás Delgado Sepúlveda, "for his involvement in the defense of workers' rights and his extensive career as a union delegate, and his active participation in the process of closing the company CLUSA S.A. in Lanzarote, defending the general interests of his colleagues."
