Three campaign workers of the PIL have denounced the party in the Courts for not having paid their salaries. "Nobody has charged anything, not a penny, zero," they denounced more than a month after the elections in La Voz de Lanzarote. Now, three months after the electoral campaign and still without having received the money that corresponds to them, they have decided to file lawsuits in the Courts to claim it. In addition, they also record that they were working without having signed an employment contract, without being registered with Social Security. "The workers, in the end, are the ones who raise the campaign and are now the most harmed," they explain.
Juan Hernández and Ayoze Páez filed a joint complaint on July 22 in the Court of Instruction number 3 of Arrecife. "We come to denounce Fabián Martín Martín, president of the Party of Independents of Lanzarote," they begin to state in the minutes of that complaint. Although currently that position, in functions, is occupied by Ramón Bermúdez, Martín was indeed the head of the party when both worked during the campaign. Martín was also the coordinator of that campaign, although these two workers have maintained from the beginning that it was actually his father, Dimas Martín, who took care of everything.
A third worker, who prefers to remain anonymous ("I am looking for work, I do not want this to cause me any problem", he justifies), has also denounced the islanders. In his case, he did it on August 7, "in the duty court." "I presented it against the party in general, because we work for the party. I did not present it against any particular person, that will be decided by the judge, who is the one who takes responsibility," he explains.
The three workers agree in emphasizing that they are not the only ones to whom the PIL owes money. According to them, a total of 21 people worked in the campaign of the islanders, and none of them has yet received their salary. According to what they denounced last June, the amount they owe would amount to a total close to 45,000 euros. The rest of the employees, however, have not taken legal action at the moment, according to this worker who prefers not to give his name, "because it was little money or because they do not want to get into trouble."
"They wash their hands" and "blame Dimas Martín"
For these three employees, the party leaders are "washing their hands". They assure that the acting president of the party, Ramón Bermúdez, and other members of the PIL are aware of their situation, but they have told them that it is not their responsibility. "One tries to solve things through a regular channel, talking to people to reach an agreement, but they refuse, refuse, refuse and blame Dimas Martín."
This worker assures that he has spoken about the situation with Bermúdez on several occasions, without obtaining a commitment to pay on his part. "Ramón Bermúdez does have the power to make pacts, but not to arrive and discover the faults of what the party inherits. That is where one is most annoyed: for the good yes, but for the bad no", he reproaches the acting president of the islanders. "First they recognize it, but they say they have nothing to pay with. And, apart from paying, they say how they justify our work. I have told them that this work is already their business, how they have to justify it is not our problem. They have to know the regulations required by the electoral campaign and everything that is asked of them to be able to present themselves and how it has to work."
"Some have benefited from our work, now they have their position and earn more than 2,000 euros a month, but nobody takes care, nobody wants to pay," says Juan Hernández. "They blame Dimas Martín, but the culprits are really them, who are the ones who present themselves," adds this third worker, also referring to the PIL candidates who obtained a public position as councilors or as a counselor after the elections.
"The PIL can do little"
"I am willing to testify and go as a witness wherever they call me. I saw them working, I saw them in the warehouses, but I do not know how they were hired, or who had hired them, or what work they were doing," Ramón Bermúdez responded when he learned that these workers had denounced the situation in the Courts.
Despite being willing to testify if necessary, the acting president of the party also assures that "the PIL can do little, because the clumsiness of not doing things regulated was committed". Thus, he alludes on the one hand to the bad economic situation of the party, but also argues that "there is no documentary support that can guarantee" their work. "They did not have a contract," indicates Bermúdez, who points out that the workers themselves explained to him that "they were told that it has always been done like this." Since Juan Hernández and Ayoze Páez made public the non-payment of their salaries last June, the acting president of the PIL has defended that those responsible for the situation are the people who hired them and not the organization.
Now, the acting president of the PIL, who claims to have found many "surprises" in the previous management of the party since he replaced Fabián Martín in the presidency, maintains his position and admits, in addition, that errors were committed in the campaign. Bermúdez explains that in the campaigns "an electoral administrator is appointed and all the income and expenses that are made in the campaign should not be in the PIL accounts, but in the administrator's". "Everything had to be linked to the administrator's account and that has not happened," he acknowledges.
"Of course, the workers if they consider that they have rights, that they did a job, must demonstrate it to whoever corresponds, in this case to the administration of justice, and try to collect the work of that time in which they were linked to the PIL," he concludes.
